Predecessor

When my sister and I were growing up, we went through the requisite series of trainer kid-pets: hamster, fish, frog, guinea pig. But in 1981, when she was 8, my sister managed to win a pure-bred Shih-tzu from a local Boys' Club auction, and we had a dog in the house. Granted, it was a very small dog - so small that training seemed a moot point - but he was a definite step up from rodents, and man, was he cute. Adorable, really. Although Taisho (which means "big chief" in Japanese) did end up getting quite a bit bigger than he was in these pictures, he was always the kind of dog you could scoop up and tote around. My mom actually tried to sneak him into IKEA once in one of their big yellow shopping bags, but that's another story.



He lived a very long and happy life. Sometimes I wonder if he and Arthur would've been friends.