My little Butters is definitely special to me.
My mom had a shih tzu named Harley who was very sweet. She had him until he was about 1 year old, until one day he got out and got hit by a car (she lived on a very busy intersection). I was living in another state at the time but I hunted down a shih tzu puppy for her to replace Harley. She named him Chopper. My boyfriend and I at the time called him Lou, and he stayed with us for about a week, and we got pretty close. My mom had him for a few months and I would pick him up to come stay with me for the weekend. We were buds. One day, when my mom was picking my little sister up at the bus stop in their small town, Chopper was running out of the car to greet my little sister getting off the bus and a car came flying by (shouldn't have even passed because of kids getting off the bus) and hit and killed Chopper right in front of all the school children.
Very sad time. It was this that prompted me to eventually get Butters, and I hadn't realized the implications that Chopper likely = Butters until I decided to start typing this post.
I called a number in the paper and went to a lady's house one warm day in May. She had three tiny little shih tzu puppies, brindle with some white markings, the coolest shih tzu dogs I'd ever seen. Mom was solid cream and dad was solid grey which was totally weird shih tzu coloration too. Anyway, Butters, the middle of the three puppies, was the first to greet me when we came into the yard. She had told me that the oldest was very ornery and rambunctious, that the runt female was very shy, and that the middle boy, Butters, was only interested in following his brother around and getting into what he gets into. She started telling me more about them and said "Yeah, they were born on March 30th - April 30th? March 30th?" She got confused for a second but by their age she obviously meant March 30th, which was my birthday! My heart skipped a beat. I knew I wasn't leaving without one so I started surveying the group. The middle one had a tiny little white tuft on the top of his head - which matches my birth mark, a white streak of hair. It's where my mother always said "the angels kissed me" so I decided to take my little angel-kissed buddy home.
For a few weeks after I got him, I had a repeating dream where I would shave him all off and underneath he would be completely white. Upon the third or fourth time of having this dream, I realized it must be significant, because I hadn't experienced many repeating dreams before - and I immediately thought of a dog I had when I was little. My dad brought home a stray maltese one day, and I picked her name: Angel, and surprisingly everyone agreed with me and we went with it. We had Angel for many years, my mom took her in the divorce, and then something happened to her a few years later, but I was never disclosed that info (she lived at the same busy intersection so getting hit by a car is likely). A maltese is almost literally a white shih tzu, so I realized that this must be my sweet Angel back in my life. No more repeating dreams!
Butters has always been my little guy. He's almost always near me. When I'm sleeping, he doesn't leave the room - I could sleep until 4 in the afternoon and he would barely leave to get a drink (and certainly not eat or go outside). He used to get really bad separation anxiety when I would leave for work - he would lay on my shoes and look pitiful, or wedge himself into the space between the door and the wall and press against it as hard as he could to prevent me from leaving. Finally we decided he needed some sort of positive trigger, so whenever I leave the house he gets a treat. Just about every time. What used to be a miserable time for him (as soon as he recognized a work-related ritual is when he would begin the wedge - so he would just psyche himself out for hours before I would leave. This of course was reflective of my own anxiety about my jobs at the time) has now become one of his favorite times of the day. For me though, the situation has flipped. What used to be heartwarming in a way, to see how devoted my dog was and how much he would miss me and beg me not to go, has now turned into a pavlovian, drooly excitement period where it feels like Butters just
can't wait for me to leave. Hahaha...
So that's my awesome story about Butters. I just thought I'd share since everyone is intimate with my story with Judy at this point, but Butters is truly my special little guy. He turns 9 this year on my golden birthday, and that's about halfway through the upper limits to a shih tzu's life expectancy. I love you, Butters!! Here is one of my favorite pictures of him, Butters and Kile all blissed out in the middle of a nice long hike.