Charly

Meet Charly. He is an 11 week old male Shih tzu. Yes...I have a dog. I never, in a million years thought I would ever own a dog! The kids have wanted one for years, and so has Dan. I finally relented. Dan did all the research on what kind of dog would best suit our family. He is amazing that way. I love it that he loves to do that kind of thing. I hate researching things. In fact, if I even breathe the word that I'm interested in something, he will start researching it for me....like the year I started sewing... or when I started biking...anyway, you get the idea. It's great! So, we were looking at getting a maltese, but they are just so small and frail that I wanted a dog that could hold up with 5 kids. So we started looking at Shih tzu's. It was tough finding a good breeder! There were dozens of scams. So we started looking for about a month. We finally found a woman who had a couple and we went to take a look and immediately fell in love with "Harry" (the other puppy she had was called Ron, and she had sold Hermoine and Neville, lol). We did go and look at another couple of puppies but we just kept thinking about our little Charly. The kids just couldn't believe that we were going through with it! It was so much fun! We then took a shopping trip to the local Pet store and got a few things, including a book called "Shih tzu for Dummies" and I began reading like crazy. So, now after about a month, we are doing grand! Yes, he pee's and poops, like any puppy and has started to love to bark, nips at Ruthie, but after some firm "no's" and a handy crate for him to sleep in, his accidents inside are few and he has started to listen when I say "no". He is smart! He is such a sweet little puppy and we are all delighted to have him! He will be the cleanest dog on the block, because anything I can't handle is a dirty dog, so I give him baths every day or every other day. The kids have stepped up taking him potty at 1:00 a.m. and again at 5:00 a.m. They also bathe him and take him for walks and clean up his poop. They have to do all this in addition to their other chores and they have to get up at night, even if it is a school night. They have complained only a little with a nice reminder that this is their dog, not mine. Although a great deal of the work is during the day in potty training him, and that falls to me :) Yay. Choosing the name was great fun. The kids had all kinds of ideas...a few of them were; Max, Tommy, or keeping Harry. But I liked Charly and suggested that name and it was outvoted! It fits him now.

For the last few years, we have decided to have a big family Christmas gift (instead of individual gifts)...this year, it's Charly. So, Merry Christmas to us!