This is not quite the way Buddy and I go for a walk, but it's close.

See the original here.

He came, he saw, he conquered.

Today marks the second anniversary of the arrival of the inimitable Buddy on the scene, delivered to my house by a dog rescue group and changing my life in many ways, most of them pretty good. I go into the matter in more detail over here for them as is interested.I just wanted to acknowledge the date here as well.

Photo Fun.

I've been playing with the new camera this morning and a couple of the shots seem worth putting up here, if only for my own amusement...

This is the "I think it's time for a walk/meal/dump" stare...

And this is my work area in about as neat and organized a fashion as it's every likely to be seen...

Life in BuddyWorld.

I am somewhat embarrassed to acknowledge that Buddy's skin issues were being exacerbated by my "treatment," rather than helped. By bathing him weekly, even with his special medicated shampoo, I was drying out his skin. And by have his coat cut very short, I was giving him access to chew his ass off (literally). When I finally sat down and thought things through, I quit the baths and let his hair grow to an unsightly length, then took him to a new groomer (recommended by my neighbor; she owns Jessica, Buddy's gal pal) who specializes in the Shih-tzu breed. As you can see, life is good at the present.

His anxiety issues come and go. For a couple of weeks, when I came back from leaving him home alone, he had clearly been lying on the floor over by the left-on TV when he ran to greet me and there were no signs of his having had snit fit. Of late, I've come back to find him barking, once still scratching that the front door and with his leash spread out on the floor where he knocked it from where it hangs. All in all, though, there seem to be no issues with the neighbors and I can only hope that Condition A is the new default and will eventually take over completely.

The end of Daylight Saving Time has thrown off his internal clock. This morning he got up at a normal hour, 6:30 rather than the 5:30 throughout the week, so I'm hoping he's adjusting. Dinner seems to be his biggest issue. I feed him around 5 and all week he's starting whimpering, coming over to paw at me and otherwise been disruptive from 4 on. We'll see tonight.

The Buddy update.

I haven't written about the dog-thing in a while now and I do get questions (Carl P, I'm looking at you) so here's an update.

Buddy remains healthy and happy in the main. He still has that itchy skin condition and nothing I've come up with seems to make it much better. I have figured out, I think, that giving him a weekly bath was probably not doing much to alleviate the situation and maybe even making it worse by drying out his skin. So we skipped the bath this week and we're now 13 days out from the last one. I'm not so sure this helps with the itching, but it does make it harder for him to make things worse with constant chewing at himself; all that hair do get in the way. On the other hand, his distinctive doggy smell is now a tad more evident and we will go back to the tub tomorrow morning.he also needs some grooming, but then again, so I. We'll get to that sooner or later.

Buddy has also, for reasons I cannot figure out, returned to a higher level of separation anxiety than he had shown recently. I fear that what he's done is figure things out. He now recognizes so much of what I do, that any step which seems to indicate I'm about to leave the house alerts him immediately and he goes into action, tail-wagging in full force and excitement mode in full force.

It's still not clear to me whether, if I just leave him here, the barking and scratching at the door fades away after some reasonable period of time. That's probably the case, because I haven't come back after an hour to trip away of late and found him doing any of that protesting; he's usually inside at the far side of the living room and running toward the door when I open it. I assume the best but I'm still very reluctant to leave alone at night time when more residents are home in surrounding apartments. The last thing I need is neighbors complaining about him.

He still continues to make me laugh out loud at least two or three times a day and is therefore a priceless companion.

Editorial Note: This post was also done with the Dragon software and my constant repeating of his name in an effort to train the software to recognize it ( which is not going very well), has driven the poor guy a bit crazy trying to figure out what exactly it is that I'm asking of him. Fortunately we are hard upon dinnertime and that will solve all of his problems for the immediate future.

The world is full of shih tzus.

It's not just my living room any longer (that's His Canine-ness enjoying the early morning sun during this most perfect of weekends). I've spoken before of Jessica, the little white and tan temptress who lives next door and has the ability to stir up desires in poor Buddy that he no longer has the equipment to satisfy, no matter how desperately he tries.

Added tot the mix as of this week, from the upstairs apartment out front is a shih tzu puppy who is identical to the Bud-man, looking like a younger, friskier version of him down to every last detail except the white markings on the paws. His face, although without the defining snaggle-tooth on the right side of the mouth, is Buddy's with some of the weight of the years removed.

I am surrounded by cuteness.

The puppy isn't yet socialized and so merely skitters away and hides behind its owner's legs rather than engage, but Buddy's approach has given me insight into how he deals with his peers. I've seen him mostly with larger dogs and he tends to approach, sniff and then stand perfectly still until the other dog loses interest. With a smaller member of his own breed, he acts more like what we call a "close talker," moving and close as possible and again standing still, but dominant in this instance. I suppose this is what the ADA means by the breed's "distinctively arrogant carriage."

With Jessica, of course, it's a sad, hopeless semi-hump.

Mostly I posted this so I could write that headline.

Can we talk?

I am itching my ass off.

Literally.

When I first came to this fine home, I was a mess, overweight, a nervous wreck and consumed by a terrible skin condition.

All of those issues have been resolved...or had been until recently. The skin condition has returned, not quite as bad, but bad enough that I chew at my nether regions to the point where I create open sores if I am not stopped.

A controlled diet of canned lamb and rice, a special dry food and only treats without meat or chicken in them, along with a daily treatment of four antihistamine  tablets pretty much resolved things, although a weekly bath with a medicated shampoo was still required.

About two months ago, without warning, everything went all to hell again.

All the above cures are still in effect, although the daily pills, only two daily now, have been switched to a stronger Pseudoephedrine Hydrochloride brand. Nothing changed when this started. A homeopathic skin and itch relief medication in my water has been some help of late but, in truth, that seems more of a narcotic than a solution.

I am looking for advice/guidance/any help I can find. If you have any of those to offer, contact the management hereabouts. He's a pretty good guy and, despite wandering off topic now and then (i.e., not devoting all his energy and time to meeting my needs) will probably be willing to give reasonable ideas a shot.

In closing, I can only say, with love in my heart, Arf! Arf!

NOTE: This message is cross-posted at Jack Curtin's Liquid Diet.

AKC, take notice.

People desperately want to pet Buddy whenever I take him out walking and they invariably ask what breed he is. He is a shih tzu, of course, and that makes some folks very nervous, especially older ladies.

Ha-ha! You said "shit." Ha-ha!

You see the problem.

Since it is his overwhelming cuteness that creates the problem in the first place, he's decided that we will use that same cuteness to solve it.

We are applying to the American Kennel Club for a new breed category: cute tzu.

This seems a perfect solution and would allow us to them get into the latest craze, cross-breeding. Cross Buddy with a poodle for example and you'd have a cute poo.

Wait. What?

Ha-ha! You said "poo." Ha-ha! 

Damn, this is going to be harder than we thought.

When Carl met Buddy.

At no thought of expense, our crack support staff has created the video below. It is a dramatization of what happened when my friend Carl P came a-visiting recently and tried every which-way to bond with the dog thing.

Starring Buddy as played by a small Collie and Carl P as himself. Enjoy.

Dog talk.

Here's a shot of Buddy from the other night, sleeping by the small table (a TV dinner tray actually) that is set up next to my chair at the desk in front of the computer. It's even cuter when he rests his head on the crossbar which you can barely see behind his shoulder but I've not been able to capture that on film (do we still call it "on film?") as yet.

I've been running about more than usual the last week or two due to the Philly Beer Week events that I need/want to cover due to my profession/personal needs and we had a guest, frequent commentator Carl P for six days, who took away his favorite couch/sleeping space and so desperately wanted to bond with him that it was very stressful. Add to that his being left home alone or shuttled to my daughter's house regularly and he's been under quite a bit of stress.

Today he began giving me That Look.

So I sat him down and gave him The Talk,which went like this.

You are merely a dog and I am a human being. This is my house, not yours.

You could not survive without me.

You could not open the refrigerator to get your food or turn on the water in the sink to fill your water bowl.

You could not open the door to go in or out or turn on the heat or air-conditioner or whatever is needed to keep things comfortable.

You need me.

You are not the boss.

I am the boss.

The fact that I spend most of my time meeting your needs and doing what you want is merely incidental.

I am the boss. Really.

I do believe I speak for dog owners everywhere.

Now, if you will excuse me, Buddy apparently wants to go for a walk.

Update:  I'll be dipped. No sooner did I post this that he did that "cute" thing and I was able to capture it. Life is good.

This dog truly fascinates me.

A Buddy post again, but sans photos, so all you dog porn folks can go back to whatever it is that gets you through (and, no, I don't want to know).

That said, I know Mr. B (the name he now insists on) is a mere canine and that I, like most pet owners, tend to attribute to him human characteristics and behavior. Still...

One of Buddy's favorite places is on the couch and it has been a movable feast during his time here. I actually prefer the far end (from the perspective of the desk where I'm sitting), which is near the window. In the colder months, though, the windows allow a whole lotta cold air to flow into the room and I thus relocate to the closer end for the winter months.

Buddy accepted that without question through the final months of last winter (when he first arrived) and again this winter, after I made the switch late last November. Of late, however, starting with Daylight Savings Time, he has relocated himself on the near end of the couch whenever the opportunity presents itself (i.e., when I get up from my seat).

So tonight I switched things around and he seems happy.

Also, I was taken with, and wrote about, his penchant to run as fast as he can, rather than walk, when we went out for "walks" immediately after his arrival. There were several people in the apartment complex who came to know him as "that cute little do who runs everywhere." That disappeared as the summer came on and through the winter months. Now? A mad dash for someplace else as soon as we step out the front door.

And so we run, and he seems happy.

He has always been very particular about strange things. He will not, if he can avoid it, step on the doormat outside the front door going in or out, squeezing himself over into the corner to try and avoid touching it. He will periodically stop dead in mid-walk/run and stare off into space. Most of all, to the extent possible, he avoided stepping on grass for the first few months here and now only reluctantly accepts it under his feet when doing his leg-lifting/unattractively squatting "business."

Except that now, when let out the back door at night do said business, he is wont to run over to any neighbor's doorway where these is a light. Granted, this mostly means the folks to the right who have a cute little Shih-Tzu of their own, girl variety, but it is not exclusively so. And of late, he pesters me during the day to let him out for a while, often sitting on the porch and just watching nothing happen, but sometimes wandering about. All of this was anathema to him a year ago.

Plus there's that thing he does where he lies quietly on the floor for an hour or more, not sleeping and giving the impression he is in deep thought.

I mean,anthropomorphizing or not, this animal appears to think more deeply and adjust his life accordingly than a goodly number of people I know.

 And he seems happy, which puts him another rung up on them.

When Buddy met Harley (again).

Hey, it's me, Buddy.

I want to tell you about going to see

my "cousin" Harley Friday.

Last time I saw her, she was

just a puppy.

As you can seen, things have changed.

We had this minor dispute over one

of her toys.

She won.

What did you expect?

But I walked away smiling.

And I live to fight another day.

photos by the Kaffer

This one is for Carl.

The loyalist of loyal readers needs must be rewarded, if only to stop his obsessive calls and emails for more photos of Buddy (a project complicated by the fact that the dog-thing is seriously unkempt for the purpose of staying warm and shies away from allowing the public catching him in such a state), and thus the below.

A dog must do what a dog must do.

This morning I was instructed in the frustrations of a small black dog who dwells in a world which has recently been transformed into one of tall white snowdrifts and limited accessibilty.

After eating his breakfast and being put out back to attend to nature's calls, Buddy came back in and proceeded to do the mad dash from one end of the apartment and back again which I have come to understand is his way of saying that he needs must go out and, putting it euphemistically, "take a healthy."

He'd just done that, of course, but this is not a matter in which I am eager to take chances, so I leashed him up and out we went, the front door this time, for a long walk along our regular route.

While the snow is still several inches deep out back and across a good portion of the grassy areas out front, there are places along the edge where it has melted down to the grass and many more where it is but an inch or two deep. This provides access to, among other places, various lampposts and signposts, each of which we stopped by while he lifted his leg and marked them, something he's not been able to do for a couple of weeks. Various places along the exposed ground were also sniffed at great length and, in many cases, then subjected to a leg-lifting.

What today's mad dash was about, I came to understand, was that he needed to provide evidence that Buddy was still in the house (metaphorically) for those people, dogs and other creatures who he assumes are consumed with wanting to know if Buddy is still in the house.

When you're king of the world, you do have certain duties which cannot be abrogated. 

It's BUDDY DAY!!

 

It was was one year ago today that His Majesty Buddy arrived on the scene--actually a little less that than since the actual arrival came around noon--and brightened up this little corner of the world.

The photo above and the one at the end of this post are his official portraits, done by a professional photographer who was shooting a beer tasting I was part of for a magazine but was so enamoured of the cute li'l devil that she paid more attention to him than to us.

My life's been a lot like that ever since and I don't mind a bit. As I've said before, Buddy makes me laugh out loud at least three times every day and there's no medicine I know of better than that to help anyone get through this vale of tears.

We will mark the occasion with biscuits and bones, more food than is deemed necessary most days and the usual pills that keep each of us from hurting too much. He also gets control of the TV remote tonight.

Feel free to sing Happy Birthday in the Comments section. He'll like that.

All He Had To Do Was Ask.

Per the cartoon below, Buddy's prayers have been answered. His own private rest room (and private is is because the snow is taller than he is by a couple of inches all around) has been dug out off the back porch.

Fortunately the snow is light but this is the first time I can recall in years that I had to do two complete shovels-full to get down to bare ground.