Our "Buddy"

It's been almost two years since our dog, "Chow", left us. I'll never forget
watching Clayton, then six, as he knelt looking out his bedroom window, just sobbing. Amber also was hurting very badly. Talk about sad!! (We had rescued Chow 3 1/2 yrs. before from the slums of Pontiac. He was a puppy. His Mother was full-blooded Chow. We had some tough times with him during the training process. He would be so mean. But he became a great dog and we loved him.)
Anyways, lately my kids have been really wanting to get a dog again. I wasn't too serious about it, but I could tell Dan was acting more interested. I guess I thought I might as well join 'em. :-) My stipulations were that I wanted a small dog and one that didn't shed.
We were looking on Craigslist and came across an ad: shih tzu, 2 yrs. old, please no small children. I called about it. The lady told me how it snapped at her kids. She wouldn't even leave it alone in the room with her kids. She had only had it two months. It was kind of a strange conversation. But the price was great for a full-blooded shih tzu, so I asked if we could make arrangements to see it. She said we would need to plan to be there quite awhile before it would get used to us.
When we arrived in the area where the dog was located, I knew the situation seemed bleaker by the minute. The door and windows of the house were barred. We went to the door and a young African American couple greeted us. She had the dog on a leash and it was barking ferociously. The house smelled like a zoo! I heard a lot of barking coming from elsewhere in the house and it didn't sound like from small dogs. Amber's great with dogs! So she started talking to it. Over the next few minutes and the course of conversation with this couple, we found out that they had 3 children under three years old, 6 pit bulls downstairs, and another shih tzu. This dog was kept in it's little cage most of the time. The man said, "This dog does not like males. It doesn't like me!" The first time Amber tried to reach out and pet it, it snapped at her. She kept talking to it. Shortly after, it started coming around. Amber fell in love with it. Long story short: we walked out with the dog and haven't had a problem since.
He was so furry we couldn't tell by looking at him, but when I first petted him I noticed that his back bone and rib bones were extremely protruding. Yesterday, I even started worrying that maybe he had a bad physical problem. When I picked him up from being groomed today, the lady said he was emaciated. So we look forward to giving it a lot of TLC!
"Buddy" has acclimated to our lifestyle wonderfully! Dan said, "He thinks he's moved to a mansion." :-) Compared to what he was used to, I guess that could be true. He's completely potty-trained. Clayton sits at the kitchen table while doing his school work and Buddy sat under his feet quite a bit of the morning. He's starting to actually bark and wag his tail, which was very seldom the first 24 hours here.
Here are some new pics from after his "day at the spa".

Picture # 2: Before grooming.
Picture # 3: After grooming.

In other news: Recently, I enrolled Clayton into a homeschool art class. Mr. Don West has a wonderful ministry in our area of teaching Christian Art to kids. He has many classes in different suburbs of Detroit. I think there were probably 20-25 kids enrolled in the afternoon class Clayton was involved in today. Matter of fact, he has so many students interested in taking the class, that he has a morning and afternoon class at this particular location. It takes place once a month and is $10.00 for the two hour class. Clayton loved it! This picture was taken during their recess. Most of the kids were outside. I had to pick Clayton up early, because he left to go up north for an overnight stay at the cabin with Dave Walker. He called and he has been having a lot of fun: eating deer jerky, riding the four wheeler, etc. I'm so happy for him!