ITS MY LIFE. I'LL DO WHAT I WANT: I miss you...

Its not even his one month anniversary yet; its on Friday. He passed away on 19 Feb 2010. I miss ah boi. Each of us, including my parents, we just keep looking at his photos. The other day, dad suddenly turned to Winnie and I and asked us to open ah boi's photos and the three of us just stood there cooing over how cute he was and reminiscing over what happened when we took those photos.

Here are some of my favorites:

#1 This photo is still mum's wallpaper on her phone. He looks like a puppy still when he's an old man. That's the good thing about shih tzu's I guess. Cute forever..

#2 Mum playing with him

#3 Contemplating whether or not to go down that step. He does that sometimes. He might just sit there and wait for someone to carry him down. Sometimes after contemplating for some time staring at the steps, he decided to turn around and walk back where he came from.

#4 This photo is to show just how short he is. Short, round and fluffy..

#5 This photo was from way back. His younger days. How can I tell? He is so much fluffier and his hair/fur is still so curly..When he was younger, he is so so pong. He has so much fur and it is always so hard to comb him after his bath. I used to dread having to cut and comb through all the knots in his fur. Mum and I used to sit there for hours combing through all their hair. (We had a lot more dogs at home before).

Have I told this story about our generation of dogs before? No?

So. Mum and dad came back with a cute male shihtzu (His name was Lion) one fine night..After a few weeks, we decided that he was bored. So we went and bought him a wife (We named her Kitty). Also a shihtzu but slightly taller than him, a bit mixed with terrier we think. They mated (a few times) and she gave birth three times.

Her first birth, she gave birth to four puppies. The first one died at birth. The second is ah pui (who has lived with us ever since and died in 2006. In the photos below). The third and fourth lived with us for some time but they died much earlier than ah pui. I don't remember which year. For a few years, we had 5 shihtzu's living with us at home. Not easy to take care of.

Second time, she gave birth to six pups all of which we gave or sold to others (mostly to our neighbours actually). I don't know what happened to all of them..

Third time, she gave birth to four or six pups. I only remember that ah boi was one of them.

Most people are surprised to hear this story. We love and care for our dogs. They were born in our own house in the middle of the night. I still remember. When we knew that their mother was going into labor, we woke up in the middle of the night to peep at her. Mum was the midwife (? I don't think there is a correct term for this) helping our dog. We watched from the staircase as the pups came to earth.. They grew up with us in our home (old house).

Sigh. Outliving your pets suck! How could we not miss them?

#6 He is older here. This photo is from more recent years. The difference is quite obvious from the photo above..

#7 Doesn't he look like a mini-bear? Soo..adorable!

#8 Here he just looks conceited. Stuck up. Living up to his title: prince.

#9 It is actually quite easy to take a photo with ah boi, and to make him turn whatever angle you want him to. Just hold the food in that direction. Observe.

#10 See..he just follows his food around..

#11 So cute.

#12 This is ah pui. Boi's older brother. I love this photo of him. Cute.

#13 They look so dirty and sleepy here. I like how ah pui looks here (the one sitting up) cos he looks so guilty. He always looks like that when he did something wrong, for example, like when he peed in the study room. When I go in search for him, he already has this guilty look (with his ears slightly down) whenever I find him. And you just know he is the culprit. That he was the one who peed in the study, and not ah boi..

Its too bad we all don't have much photos of ah pui. After he passed away, Winnie kept taking photos of ah boi. She said something along the lines of: When he's gone, at least we have all these photos of him. I always regret not taking more photos of ah pui.

So true. Must remember to take more photos of loved ones people! Preserve your memories!