"Us" refer to;
Me, Ulla, ‘crazy on dogs’ as from my childhood. My husband, who is ‘crazy on
work’. And our son, who has his own shih tzu and own rabbit. Love to animals is in the
genes. Though the dog shows are a thing which either of ‘my men’ don’t quite
understand. We live in south of Finland, close to Helsinki.
"We the shih tzus have conquered half of the garden, but there is still enough of
space for those humans….. humans with their flowers, nonsense! (Ulla is planting the
flowers and we dig them up, it is a very nice game!)."
With the new big garden I have a lot of work and I must admit that gardening is not
amongst my strongest skills, but I do my best. By doing we learn and thanks to my
mother-in-law of all the good advises.
The flowers are beautiful but the shih tzus are even more beautiful. We participate the
dog shows with the terms of the dogs. I do not press any of them to take part in the
shows, the value of my dogs is not dependent on victories. I must admit that of course
winning in the shows feels good for that short moment. The biggest joy is related to the
every-day-life, which these oriental darlings bring to us. The food is a very important
part of the dogs’ life and that is why I cook the food myself. They have liked it and
some weight problems has occurred every now and then, but that is solved by jogging more
often and actually that is healthy for all of us in the family.
Then a little bit of history:
In 1978 when I was still a little girl my mother persuaded me to have a shih tzu as my
first dog. Black and white Lolita conquered our whole family. Years went by and the ‘dog
feaver’ grew …. in 1984 Ch Jem-Gem Cko-ky-Berry arrived and changed my life. The dog
show ‘fly’ bite me and that was it. The story started in 1978 and is still continuing.
During the years half of the members of the family have been acquinted with the shih tzus
in their homes. It has been a joy to own these dogs together with all of them.
When writing this, I noticed one thing:
During all these years I have chosen only one dog by myself and that to my mother not to
myself. All our dogs have one way or another chosen us …… and maybe that is the reason
why a very strong bond has grown between me and the dogs, which also comes out in the dog
show rings. I believe that everyone of us ‘makes’ his/hers own dog show dog.
For breeding I believe I am too emotional. During these years only one litter of puppies
has been born in my home in 1996 (registered under Jem-Gem). It was a very nice
experience, but the problem was to give up the puppies finally. Nearly all of my girls has
got one litter at the home of the breeders, and I am very happy of this opportunity given
to me.
Shih tzu-like regards,
Ulla |
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