Penny! Penny! Penny! (It's As If I Have Nothing Else To Talk About.)

What do you mean you've never heard of Tibetan Terriers? I can't be the only person who keeps a list of dogs that don't shed under their pillow at night, can I?

Oh.

Yeah, so, Penny (AKA Penelope Grace because dogs need middle names, too. How else will I properly yell at her when she's swinging from a chandelier with a cat in her mouth?) is a Tibetan Terrier, which officially completes our matching pair of weird dog breeds. I think people are more likely to figure out where the names Cody and Penny come from than they are to figure out what a Havanese and a Tibetan Terrier are. That's OK, though. I'm here to educate! Or something...

The long of the short is that Tibetan Terriers have been on our collective "WANT" list for a while now. We had given up on the dream, though, because there just didn't seem to be any around. The fact that a litter was available within three hours of our house at *just* the right time still sort of blows my mind and makes me think IT WAS MEANT TO BE.

Tibetan Terriers have been on our list because they are nothing short of AWESOME. They're one of the oldest breeds in existence, having originated in Tibet (they aren't terriers at all-the name is just plain wrong in that regard). They used to live with monks forever ago and are close relatives of Lhasa Apsos and Shih Tzus. If you were to put the three breeds in a line together, the Shih Tzu would come in just under the minimum size requirement to actually be considered a dog. I suggest using them as a football instead. Lhasa Apsos are barely dogs, but are pretty freakin' awesome. We had one before we got Cody and adored the hell out of that pup. Then there are the bigger Tibetan Terriers. They are somewhere around knee height and weigh 20-25 pounds, meaning they are big enough to do crazy big dog things, but small enough to not make me insane.

They have the awesome crazy long hair like Shih Tzus and Lhasa Apsos.

 

(photo source)

Before you scoff at all that hair, THEY DON'T SHED. AT ALL. Well, OK, a little bit, but they really do have hair instead of fur, which means they shed about as much as a human does. I can't speak for Penny just yet, but our Lhasa Apso shed far less hair every day than I do. FAR less. (Cody also doesn't shed, so I don't have any dog fur tumbleweeds in my house. NEENER NEENER.) Oh, and hair instead of fur means Tibetan Terriers are generally OK for people who are allergic to dogs.

As far as temperment goes, Penny is pretty much perfect for us. She's cool with just hanging out, but also likes to play. She positively adores Alexis and happily snuggles up in her lap for hours on end.

Tibetan Terriers typically get along fine with other dogs and with cats. They're smart (possibly too smart) and highly trainable. The one personality drawback is that they are smart enough to figure out how to train their humans. Which, how much do you want to bet that Penny has Mr. Husband fully trained by the time she's two months old?

Who am I kidding? She already has him trained.

He Fights Dirty. I Fight Dirtier.

I am a cat person. It's not that I don't like dogs, it's that cats are easier. I'm not the one who takes care of litter boxes or food or anything around here, so cats are like fuzzy little friends who I can ignore or hang out with whenever I please. We could have ten of them and I wouldn't care because they don't effect me in any way.

Dogs, on the other hand, can't be ignored. They demand my attention, which, WTH? Do I *look* like I want to pet you right now? Unless your name is Adam Levine, I DON'T. Dogs make me let them out, they demand that I acknowledge their existence, and we have to carefully plot any attempts at going out of town because I can't just lock them in the basement with a big bowl of food and some water like I can cats.

Cats are better than dogs. It's a fact.

Which is why I was perfectly happy with the idea of staying a one-dog family after Meg passed away. Mr. Husband, however, never met a fuzzy (or scaly or slimy, for what it's worth) thing he didn't want to keep. He collects animals like other people collect Precious Moments figurines. Or at least he tries to. I am an evil wife and manage to control the pet population in our house through the effective use of nagging, whining, and pure stubbornness.

I was prepared to fight to keep the dog population at one around here. FIGHT. KICKING AND SCREAMING.

I wasn't prepared to go to battle with someone who fights dirty, though.

I don't know exactly when it started, but I do know that some of the ammunition was created by the short person herself. Alexis was ready to go get a puppy the day Meg died, so it wasn't really surprising when she started asking pretty much daily.

It was surprising when she started to get breed specific with her begging.

I smelled a rat.

The rat stopped bothering to hide his shenanigans after a few days. It seems that SOMEONE had made it a habit to run google searches for various breeds and show Alexis the puppies. SOMEONE was telling her things like, "Isn't that Old English Bulldog puppy cute?" SOMEONE was fighting dirty.

I ignored the shenanigans. I am strong. In a cage fight, those two would lose to the power that is me and my Mom Glare.

But then I realized something. As Mr. Husband continued to seek out available puppies, his choices in breeds had become more . . . not good. The dogs were bigger, shed more, were more mentally unstable, drooled more, were lazier, and were BIGGER. Did I mention that they kept getting bigger? Because they did. The word "sheepdog" was thrown around one day, even.

If there is one thing I don't need, it's a big dog. I don't do big. Big = big poops. Big = taking up my ENTIRE couch instead of just one cushion. Big = 200 pounds of dog trying to convince me that it fits in my lap. That's how it works, you know. No matter what I do, the dogs in our house end up thinking I am their lord and savior and they harass the heck out of me 24/7. BIG = BAD. FOR ME.

I had to do something.

Twenty minutes after realizing I was going to get suckered into something I didn't want, I had found just the right breeder. I emailed a link of available puppies to Mr. Husband and *BAM.* The next day he had paid a deposit and the deal was done.

Obviously, we picked Penny up over the weekend.

Penny is a Tibetan Terrier.

But you knew that, right? ;-)

An Update On The Things

A lot of people have asked how Alexis is doing through all of the things that have made this The Year Of Suck. Usually I respond by asking if they have met Six? Because Six is very much so like a puppy. It runs around all sorts of happy and oblivious because Six is the center of the universe. Just make sure you hand over the treats and clean up after it, you know?

That's to say, the kid is fine.

She knows about the lack-of-a-job thing but doesn't particularly care. It's not that she's insensitive, it's that at the end of the day, it hasn't yet impacted her in any sort of tangible way. She asks for things constantly. I tell her "no" constantly. That was the way of the world before That Thing With That Company happened.

As for the car accident, she was engrossed in a movie on her Kindle Fire one moment and upside-down in a creek the next. She didn't even know something had happened other than OMG WHERE DID THE MUPPETS GO? because she dropped her Kindle and THAT was the most important thing in that very moment. By the way, Kindle Fires float. It was retrieved and was no worse for the wear. Once some old school Muppet movies were streaming on it in her hot little hands, she didn't care about the car anymore.

And then there's the miscarriage thing. I've met Six and I know Six asks more questions than a grand jury, so Alexis doesn't know about it. We were getting close to telling her things were going to change but hadn't because HAVE YOU MET SIX? I couldn't handle months and months and months of being interrogated. My mission was to delay the torture as long as possible. At some point we'll fill her in, but for now, she's happily oblivious.

Then there's the chorus of the bad country song that is my life that talks about the dog dying. Alexis was really, really upset when we told her Meg had passed away. She sobbed in my arms for over an hour. But then, well . . . here's the thing. Meg wasn't Her Dog. You know how Christina yelled at Owen to be Her Person? THAT. (If you don't get the reference, I'm crazy jealous of you. WHY HAVE I BEEN SUCKED INTO GREY'S ANATOMY?)

Alexis loved Meg, but Cody is Her Dog.

Cody is the photo-bombing, tail-wagging, kiss-giving furry friend that makes Alexis' heart go pitter-patter. The two of them are like peanut butter and jelly. They just go together. You guys, she can hold up a sweater and he'll run at her at top speed, as if to say, "IS THAT FOR MEEEE? YAY!" and then he sits there and lets her dress him. He dances with her, he cherishes her every glance, and he listens to her WAY better than he does any other humans in this house. She knows that he adores her and returns the adoration in triplicate.

Meg, on the other hand, was a lumpy, bumpy, drooly slug. Alexis and Meg fought over which of them got to sit next to me. Alexis cried and cried and cried when Meg would sit on her "artwork" and destory it. (My answer to that dilemma was always DON'T LEAVE IT ON THE FLOOR, KID but Alexis didn't like that answer.) Alexis loved Meg, but she could never be Her Dog.

Cody is Alexis' heart and soul.

But, you know, I think maybe Penny is going to give him a run for his money.