My dog snores

 

I think he tolerates constant haircuts, back, sides, flanks, belly, neck, face, paws, because it's cooler and more comfortable in hot weather. I also gave the front drive and barn entrance a close haircut with the weed whacker, to have a better chance of seeing snakes. He's been bitten by copperheads twice, five years ago and again nine months ago, terrible episodes that could have killed him. He was run over by a FedEx van a couple years ago, and a decade earlier I rushed him to a dog hospital in Houston because he gobbled up poisoned meat on a routine dog walk, a medical emergency when he collapsed unconscious. $2000 later I told him that he used up his entire lifetime health care budget, which wasn't enforced very strictly. I don't want to calculate all the dough I spent on this stupid intellectual dog that I adopted from a shelter. I remember the day we met. "What are you doing in jail?" I asked him in disbelief.

 

He and I are about the same age, both of us suffering skin lesions and reduced mobility. I can't guess which of us will die first. Shihtzus live relatively long lives. The showdog version looks like a horizontal Cousin It with beautifully brushed silky hair that undulates when it prances proudly.

 

Tooie is 2/3 anarchist who thinks that he's a guard dog in a battle zone, which is an absurd fantasy. He's terrified of gunfire, fireworks, and household fly swatters. If I swing at a fly, he jumps up and tries to run through a closed door, distressed because the doorknob is way the hell up there and can't be opened with a paw. Absent gunfire or fly warfare, when he doesn't get his own way, he snorts at me.

 

The other thing that's odd about his breed, aside from stubbornness and routine refusal to acknowledge lawful human authority, is a tragic and often fatal belief that shihtzus can fly. Too many of these idiots have jumped from multistory patios and windows to their deaths. They originate from Imperial China, where they slept with the Emperor to warm his feet. Mine insists on taking most of the bed and slams his weight against me. This is not always desirable and I push back. He grumbles with exasperation and jumps down to sleep in the laundry basket or in front of the refrigerator, both of which he regards as dog equipment, which they most emphatically are not! Go away. Go sit down. Go!

 

We have a big vocabulary. Stay and wait. Come here, you need a sweater. One paw. One other paw. Wait a minute. Okay, let's go. Ready? Go. Come on. Hurry up. Good dog. Come with me, go for a walk. Are you all done? Come on, it's cold out here. Good boy. Come here. Let me see your dog eyes.

 

Other shihtzu owners have done terrible things surgically to their eyes, because they are prone to weep goo that hardens into rocks. I deal with it by frequent wiping and yanking dry rocks from his lashes and eyelids. It's tiresome to trim the stupid dog. Gigantic piles of hair on the floor or the grass outside in fair weather. He dulls scissors. Feeding him and keeping dog treats handy is a weekly grocery bill.

 

We're been together a long time, traveled together by car 3 or 4 thousand miles, a dozen interstate trips and numerous motel nights. He knows what elevators, concrete stairwells, and gas station walks are.

 

The only reason I have Tooie is distrust that anyone else could care for him. He needs a lot of attention between long bouts of elderly snoring, and he has to sleep indoors or in a safe area outside, because he's defenseless, an old alpha dog with missing teeth and no army to lead (my situation, too). Twelve years ago we lived in a townhouse complex near a neighbor who had two shihtzus. The female often got loose and made a beeline for my front door, barking madly for admittance. When all three ran as a pack in a park, Tooie was top dog, always in front, a blur who could run 20 mph in his youth, maybe 3 or 4 years old at the time. By arithmetic, he's 15 or 16 now, and his "run" devolved to a lame hop, a slow walk, or a slightly out of control downhill trot. His eyesight is terrible, cloudy at best. Ears and nose still work. The literature claims that among all dog breeds, shihtzus are genetically closest to a wolf. What awful karma! A wolf cut down to a dustmop by a wonky gene, pack behavior intact. He adopted me as a pack brother, disputes my fitness for leadership, and never smiles. Cass knows all about the breed, calls them dragons. I am not prepared to find him dead or unresponsive some morning.