Mr. Chips

My next door neighbors moved into their house a few weeks after I moved into mine.

Since I live on a mountain, and bugs aren’t a problem this high, whenever the weather permits, I leave my back door open to get fresh air. The neighbor’s dog, a Shih Tzu named Mister Chips, became a frequent visitor to my house. He would greet my two cats, Vinnie and Sonny, and try to get them to play with him. There was never any of the fabled dog/cat fighting. They ignored him. He would follow me around for a while, then steal a cat toy and go home.

About a year and a half ago, both my neighbors became ill and had to move into assisted living facilities. Neither of the couple’s sons could take the dog. It seemed only natural that Mister Chips, Chipper, Chipperdoodle, Chips, Chiparooni, the Chipmeister, would stay at my house.

He came with an extra five pounds—twenty-three altogether, a huge amount for a Shih Tzu. There was also a large corrugated box of assorted snacks that went straight into the trash, and a bag of $40 prescription dog food he wouldn’t eat. I think he was living on the snacks, ergo the extra weight. Sometimes I refer to him as Tubalard. I tried to be stern about him eating healthy, but he went three days without eating a bite. Now I’m cooking chicken for him, chopping it into tiny pieces, and mixing it with his kibble. He likes me to chop up a carrot and add it to the pan. I didn’t cook this much for my kids.

He also came to me with a contractor’s bag of toys, and he knows every one of them. It’s a game we play. I pick them up, put them on the bottom tier of the coffee table, and he pulls them back out. The thing about cat toys is that they’re so small they don’t dominate the house. Chip’s toys are mostly stuffed animals almost as large as the dog, and heaven forbid one gets under the bed or sofa. Even though he has two dozen others, he will cry and carry on until I get the broom and push it out. I’m pretty sure the cats are pushing them under there.Sometimes women attract cheapest generic viagra towards other males in search of erotic pleasure which leads to an extramarital affair. buying viagra in canada He further adds that workout benefits your heart while surging the blood flow to the genitals. If the diagnostics indicate a urologic disorder, do not hesitate while shopping from an online drug purchase levitra no prescription store. There are certain side sale viagra effects too.

Vinnie and Sonny still won’t play with him, but since I take him with me if I’m going to be gone longer than six hours, they now greet him with head bumps when he comes home and sniff him all over.

He’s stingy with his smiles, and the best you can get from him is when he displays a bottom row of crooked teeth. At least they’re nice and white. In all the time I’ve had him, he’s only missed his daily walk twice when the rain was pouring from the sky in buckets. He hates the rain. Every morning, around eight (seven, once it gets really hot here) he comes to me whining, and I put his harness on him, and he makes his rounds, peeing at every house. Every-single-house. We live in a pick-it-up neighborhood, so baggies are part of my daily dress, very fashionable around here. His are pale blue with little darker blue bones stamped on them. We also have drop boxes for the poop so you don’t have to carry it all the way home.

I figure a year and a half of walks (wait a minute while I consult a calculator) comes to about 575 walks. We don’t go more than a half-mile. His legs are only six inches long. He hasn’t lost a pound. Neither have I.