Just recently my Tessy had a litter of puppies. Early in the morning we received a call from a couple who had "just" lost their shih tzu. They were very upset and crying. This was about 6:00 a.m., I believe. Tessy had an available male that would fit this couple and so I was running about at this early morning hour getting the puppy ready for them to pick up. Suddenly I noticed Tessy giving me a very unusual kind of disgusting look. I felt like she was saying: "now just what do you think you are going to do with my boy?" "Whatever you are up to, Connie, I just don't approve of it and I am very suspicious of your actions right now." I just looked back at Tessy and said, "well Tessy, we can't keep all of them." Sometimes my girls do get upset at me when it is time to start placing their puppies. It is like they make me feel as if we should keep every one of their puppies and just live here as one big happy family. That is impossible. And I keep reminding them that this is just impossible. I keep a lot of our puppies just for that very reason. The moms enjoy them so much, I can't stand to take all of them away from the mother. I notice also that the mothers are happier when they have at least one of their offspring with them at all times.

Humans are very inconsistent. I am inconsistent. Dogs do best with structure and consistency. The best way (and I don't always do as I say) to avoid confusing your shih tzu is to set clear house rules from the beginning. So if you don't want to do things that annoy your shih tzu, and you don't want your shih tzu doing things annoy you, try to set some clear house rules with the entire family before the shih tzu arrvies. Be consistent and provide structure.

Some things you might want to address first are: Will the shih tzu be allowed on your furniture? Where will your shih tzu be sleeping? When and where will you feed your shih tzu. Where will the shih tzu use the bathroom (try to choose one spot and don't change the spot). If you can get all those things straightened out with him in the beginning, you have solved several problems for yourself and your shih tzu.

Try to be aware of the things that annoy your shih tzu and if you can successfully fix those things you do to annoy him, you might be pleasantly surprised to find the shih tzu does fewer things to annoy you as well.