The Legacy of Lady Lou the Shih Tzu

Lady Lou had lived a long life receiving love from me, my sister, and most importantly the amazingly super strong love of my mother. My mom was very chill in her earthly days and it rubbed off on Lady Lou. She was the most chill dog with humans. One time I told the mail lady that was scared Lady would bite her, "you don't need to be scared unless you wanna get licked to death." 

Lady was born the same year I graduated from college, 2004. She is a full breed shih tzu. A neighbor was breeding shih tzus and my mom would see her on her excercise walks. They became friends. When the litter came, Lady was the biggest of them all. I'm talking if Shaq  was a shih tzu, he would have been the same size as Lady. The neighbor, the same one my mom would give, every year, lagoon  tickets from the kidney foundation to, gave my mom Lady in show of her gratitude.
Lady was giant for a shih tzu but still tiny though. So small she could fit in my coat pocket when she was young. I would often carry her in my coat pocket. One time I went to the family of my fiancé at that time, and her dad said what's that in your pocket. "It's my dog" I responded. He said, "you can let it out if you want." she crawled up the stairs and on the stairs in the front room took a tiny dump. I was embarrassed at the time. Now that the relationship didn't work out, I'm kind of proud and jealous that I didn't do that.

We had been taking care of another dog named Coco for a while before Lady came. When we returned Coco to my brother, I have a feeling my mom missed the company of Coco, so when the neighbor offered Lady, she accepted Lady in a heart beat.

She was a smart dog. She potty trained very fast. She was very nice to humans. She would bark a ferocious storm when she would see another dog. I used to warn the other person walking their dogs, "don't worry she's not mad she's just loud.

Coco came back to us via my brother and so Lady and Coco became a tandem. Every once in a while they would fight each other over my mom's love. She would break the two up and have a stem talking to them. Then they would be a tandem again.

The dogs had many walks with my mom. Lady would follow the rules until she saw another dog. Once she saw another dog she would bark and get up on her hind legs. She would pull and charge towards the other dog. She was the muscular biggest Sister of the litter and when my mom walked Lady by her sisters she would be barking and in the hind legs and doing a charge towards her sisters, who were doing the same thing only behind the fence. That's where I developed the idea that maybe she was showing her love in the way that the loudest Aunty I have does.

Lady would be like the bossy rule keeper of the tandem. There were times when Lady would grab Coco's leash with her mouth and walk Coco while Lady was being walked by me or my mom.

Lady would rarely run outside the fence unless she was enforcing the rules for her sister Coco. Coco liked to run to a couple of houses but Lady only a couple times was found at another house.

I used to run with both the dogs on my 4.7 mile jog. Both would run at first. Then as Coco got older she got lazier. Sometimes I would have to pick up Coco and run with her, while lady ran along side.

Coco would sleep on my mom's bed and Lady would sleep next to me in my bed. Lady seemed to like me the most and my mom even used to talk to Lady and tell her that she was my dog.

Mom loved the two dogs so much. I remember one time Lady was sick. My mom was so worried about her that she asked me to give Lady a priesthood blessing. In the sect I belong to, we believe that we have the power to bless people who are sick to get better. I had never blessed a dog but because it was my mom's wish, I did.

The dogs returned my mother's love as much as they could. We used to put our couch under neath the window in the front room. When mom would go somewhere they would watch her from the window. They recognized her walk and when they saw her come home, they ran to the door to happily meet her.

My bed height changed with Lady's ability to jump. I would initially sleep on a mattress on on the floor. Then I got a bed on a platform. Coco could definitely jump higher than Lady but Lady was much stronger. I remember as Coco got older, she couldn't jump as well. There were a few times where she could only land her front two legs and had to pull herself up like that or hang as long as she could.

So often if I was not sleeping at home Lady would sleep at the foot of my mom's bed or they would sleep on opposite sides of my mom. They didn't fight often but when they did, it was usually over my mom's love.

Lady Lou, as we would sometimes call her, always had my back. She was my ride or die chick. Because of this Lady, was a tremendous blessing in my divorce and also in my hand amputations.

I remember one time where my ex wife had come home and got next to Lady. Lady turned her nose up and walked away from her. My wife at the time mumbled, "she knows!?!" I often wonder if Lady had smelt another man's scent on my now ex wife.

When I had hands, Lady and I would play a game. I would pass my right hand really close to her face and she would quickly snap at my right hand with her mouth and arm and then I would do the same thing to the opposite side and repeat until she finally caught my hands with her mouth. She would play bite and thrash a little.

When I came home from my amputations, I wanted to do that with Lady and so I tried it with my residual stumps. She caught my arms a couple times and after that, I feel like she sensed a difference and that I was missing my hands and was hurt. She stopped playing with me in that manner but changed the way she interacted with me.

Lady was mischievous, sometimes. I remember one time I had a pack of red vines. She was left in the car with the red vines. Her and Coco got into the red vines. When I can back to the car, Lady tried to act like she didn't do anything. The only problem was that her face has white fur around it. At that time it was red.

A couple of the things she hated was people touching her paws. I used to do it to annoy her. She also didn't like me blowing on her ears or face. I also did that to annoy her. Swimming and water was another thing she hated. We assumed it was because she had a short snout and the water went in her nose easily.

She loved to put her neck on your neck. Or put her neck on a blanket or your chest. 

She used to ride with me everywhere in the car. She would stand on my lap and put her two front paws on the car window frame. Then she would stick her head out the window and bark. One time the window was too wide open and as I made a turn she fell straight out the window. She hit the ground hard and had a seizure. I was afraid she was going to die. She pulled through and from then on we never had the window open that big.

She would ride shotgun with me and often look out the window and bark at everything. Sometimes if I was traveling I would be packing my suitcase. She would often sleep in the suitcase as if to suggest that she was going with me. 

Lately, though she had lost her sight and hearing. Her eyes are all scarred over by her cataracts. She can't see where my bed is to jump on, so I would lift her up. She couldn't hear my whistle that she used to respond to with the quickness. At that time a couple years ago, I started to realize that her life might be coming to an end. I started taking her everywhere with me to play pokemon. She loved it.

It eventually got to the point that Lady didn't enjoy riding with me anymore. She also didn't like going on walks anymore. She started to have blood in her feces. She was not eating for a couple days.

I told Lady the last few days that she had done a fantastic job. She would for sure go to dog heaven to be reunited with her "sister" Coco and my mom would be there to welcome her. I told her those things and I told her she had left a legacy of one of the greatest dogs the Matagi family had ever had. She and Logan would be the dogs that all my future dogs would be measured against, Lady being the one that lived for sixteen years. Manuia lau malaga, Lady.