ma chien...

This post goes out to my pup Zuzu, who will undergo surgery tomorrow to remove a mast cell tumor from her hind leg (which is left alone could be deadly in about a year)...she is the ripe old age of seven and a half and she was our first baby! Todd loves to tell the story of how we got her--I saw a sign in our neighborhood that someone had shih-tzu puppies so I called and the lady lived around the corner and Zuzu was her last one for sale (I think I know why now). I fell in love with her and called Todd to come straight from work to the breeder's house to see her--no surprise the price was quite firm as I was begging Todd for us to buy her in front of the breeder...oh well, live and learn. And alas, our first days with Zuzu were fraught with vet visits for her worms and parasites, malnutrition, and other issues I can't even remember--I do remember that the entry fee for dog ownership seemed abnormally large! We spent the first weeks with Zuzu nursing her back to health and falling in love with her. Many of you have asked where we got her name--have you ever seen "It's A Wonderful Life?" Jimmy Stewart's character has a daughter in the movie named Zuzu, and when Jimmy Stewart's character wishes he had never been born, he sees how the bad off the world would have been without him and he wishes to be alive again. He reaches his hand into his pocket and pulls our flower petals from Zuzu's flower (he had hidden them in the pocket and told Zuzu he would paste them back on). When he finds the petals, he realizes he is alive again and shouts, "Zuzu's petals! ZUZU'S PETALS!!" I love having that image in my head when I call that dog's name--happy to be alive!
Zuzu loves kids and kids love her--she is missing most of her teeth from some unfortunate gate-chewing episodes so she really is quite harmless :) She has some funky eye issues--never quite sure if she's looking at you, but her tongue ALWAYS finds your face even if she's not!
she is a dog after all and will do about anything for food--our friend A thought she was sitting on his lap because she liked him...but you see what she's after...
this is her station...watching the twins as they are the most likely food sources...
this is where she sleeps--right up next to my pillow! But she always has to be in on the action--this is obviously when Lily was like almost 3 and Ty was a baby
Lily has been infatuated with her from day one...


Zuzu always seeks our our laundry--clean or dirty. I can have shirts on hangers lying on the sofa waiting to be hung up and she will lay on top of the stack...so if I ever smell a little like a shih-tzu, well you know why...
the early days--she had to indoctrinate Todd into the whole licking thing...Todd just didn't do the whole dog licking you thing until Zuzu sort of forced the issue...

this was us--Mama and her baby...little did I know this sweet animal would end up in last place in a line-up of seven! But we do still love her deeply and when the kids are all in bed at night, she seeks me out and doesn't leave my side until morning. She has made us work at loving her at times--she's destroyed more stuff than I can even remember--some of you recall the famous vertical blind incident...but even when she has been naughty, I still feel compassion for her because she still loves us so much and we can't always return the favor. Todd and I have assumed her persona and make up stories to tell the kids where we talk in "Zuzu's voice" and she really does have a very witty and interesting take on the world--she reminds us all the time that she just a teeny tiny, little insignificant little poo-zoo and that her licking is a free service that she provides...someday I will write down our stories to preserve for our kids because they love them so...at any rate, I will be praying for her tomorrow during her surgery (and for my friend F, who will be doing the surgery), and I will be ready to get those first post-operative licks from her...cheers