Blondie and I are convinced that there is something very strange going on at my house, where the Lesser Weevil, and Spike, the Weevil I Know Nothing Of, are getting along famously with each other, and on terms of moderate familiarity with at least two of the cats, Sammy and Percival.

The Lesser Weevil is crated at night, and let out into the yard during the day, and seems to both rather like the shelter of the crate, and to have grasped the whole concept about the proper disposition of body wastes— that is, outside the house. After all, Mom and Dad’s dogs always caught on, without a great deal of fuss and hyperventilating. Alas, the tiny Shi-tzu Spike (or Spike-ette, or Spike-arella) is innocent of the whole concept, in spite of our best efforts at monitoring and control. For a very small dog, about 5 pounds when dripping wet, she generates an amazing number of small piles of poop on an erratic and wholly mysterious basis.Said small piles suddenly and magically appear in areas where she has not recently been for twenty minutes or half an hour. It is most completely mystifying to have a small, well crusted (and therefore aged) pile suddenly appear in the middle of a stretch of carpet, which was pristine five minutes previously… and when Spike has been curled up blamelessly on a folded towel in the other room, dead asleep for the past half hour. Blondie and I are neither blind, nor unobservant, or that indifferent to housekeeping, but we have yet to account for this phenomena. I postulate the existence of a small, erratic wormhole in the local space-time continuum, with one end fixed on Spike’s nether regions, and the other opening erratically at various points around the house, depositing poop which has spent any number of minutes or hours in limbo in trans-dimensional space, before emerging into the here and now… usually just when we are within a hairs-breadth of stepping in it. Blondie is convinced the cats are plotting a feline coup de pussy-tat, conniving to undermine Spike and pay her back for snorkeling through their litterbox in search of unspeakably canine gourmet delights. Little Arthur, Henry and Morgie therefore must be concealing Spikes’ output, and then placing it strategically, as some disgusting sort of poop-mine. So far, there is no evidence either way, although our neighbor Judy has pointed out that she has observed Spike doing her business on top of the magazines and newspapers piled on the lower deck of the coffee table… and the feline element might be doing their bit to move it on to a location slightly more noticeable. The jury is still out… as are the paper towels, disinfectant and the carpet-scrubber.

Aside from this, she is quite an endearing little dog, feisty and fearless, in spite of her small size, and— aside from the housebreaking issue— outgoing, affectionate and not the least bit neurotic or snappish. Blondie insisted on us getting away from the house and yard and all that on Memorial Day, so we drove up to Fredericksburg, and took the Spikelette with us. The toy breeds are supposed to be the ultimate porta-puppies, who live for nothing else than to be Velcroed to their chosen human 24-7. Spike’s notion of absolute nirvana seems to involve being draped across either one of our laps, or tucked into our elbows like a fat, furry little football. We put her in a harness and under leash and walked up one side of Main Street and down the other, and went to the Herb Farm, and enjoyed the day immensely. We had to carry her after a block or so; she was at a hazard of being stepped on, or leash-entangled in someone’s legs, and of course we carried her into the shops we were interested in. I thought sure we would be kindly asked to leave with our dog from some of the very high-toned places, but it looks like the fashion for tiny pocket-puppies is well established in Texas; I’d not be surprised to hear that Shi-tzus as a fashion are so very much last year, since everyone— especially those inclined to coo over Spike— seemed to have one, or know someone who had one. A lady from Austin who gave us her card and was especially admiring, runs the local breed rescue chapter. There is a horrible fate in store, we are certain, for people who get pure-bred dogs because the breed is the latest craze, and then decide it just doesn’t work for them, although the lady from Austin said, comfortingly, that it was a good thing that Spike’s original owners took only two weeks to decide that she wasn’t working for them, and pass her on to someplace where she had a chance for a happy and affectionate life, full of play with other animals. Spike was so happily drained by this adventure that from Monday evening, she slept motionless and exhausted, like a scrap of limp black and white fur on the folded towel that is her bed for most of that night. Yes, she is a happy little dog, and will have a wholly happy life.

It is the funniest thing, to watch the Lesser Weevil walk through the living room, with Spike’s jaws firmly clamped to her jowl or ear, like some furry body-piercing. The two of them are tussling under the bed as I write this, and the Lesser Weevil is as indulgent and long-suffering as if Spike were one of her very own puppies. Now, if she would only grasp that whole eliminating-out-side concept… but I am suspecting there may be a very real reason for the breed name being commonly pronounced as “shit-su”!