Oh, Shih Tzu!: Happy Birthday, Leapin Louie

Today is a very special day - it's Leapin Louie's birthday! He's 12 (or three ... depending how you look at it - and that's not the first time I've said that today!)

Louie is my first Shih Tzu and what has got me involved in this "crazy" world of dogs. I thought this would be a good opportunity to share Louie's story.

I got interested in Shih Tzu when a friend of mine bought one. Baxter shares a birthday with me and I'm his special Auntie.

THE SEARCH ...
In 2000, when we were in the process of building our first home, I knew that we needed a dog (the cats disagreed). I started my search in early March. My original search consisted of a call to my vet for referrals. This lead to a chain of phone calls which eventually led me to Louie's breeder, who was about two hours southwest of here. I wanted a male, and she had just had a litter of three pups, one was male. Something about this seemed "right" to me, so I agreed to put a deposit on him, sight unseen. What a risky move! She said that we could plan a visit to see him at about six weeks of age, and we'd pick him up a few weeks later.

It occurred to me after I hung up the phone that the breeder mentioned the litter being born about "a week an a half ago" - which was close to February 29th. When I talked to her again, I asked the date of birth ... sure enough, leap year pups.

This is one of the first pictures I have of Louie - he's on the right.

THEN CAME THE WAITING ...

In the weeks to follow, I started planning for our "new arrival." Pets.com had been recently launched and I did quite a bit of my first ever online shopping. (Louie still has a toy from those initial purchases.)

We got to go down and visit with Louie when he turned six weeks old. I borrowed my friend's digital camera and took some pictures. (First time I ever used a digital camera!) By this time, we already knew that we wanted to name him Louie, but hadn't thought of a "registered" name for him.