Lottie

First, I must apologize for the above photo. No Pekingese were injured in the making of that photo. Insulted maybe, but not injured.
Doesn't it just bring a smile to your Monday, though? I thought so.

Lotus Moon, or "Lottie", is our almost-nine year old female pekingese. She is also known as "wiggle bottom" because her whole back half wiggles when she gets happy. She is a complete alpha-female (bossy) to other dogs, which is always humorous when the other dog is something like a German Shepherd. (Generally, Lottie loses in those situations--but she doesn't admit it.) She views all young dogs as her puppies and will mother (boss) them to no end. She had five puppies before we spayed her and she still gets to see (boss) her son regularly. (Scooter is twice as big as her, so it is pretty cute watching him listen to his mama.)

With people, Lottie is the sweetest, cuddliest thing in the world. She will snuggle in your lap for hours, or curl up next to you in the bed at night and barely move till morning. She loves to give kisses and will actually whine and "talk" from happiness when you pet her.

I cannot imagine a sweeter dog. (Although I am sure there are canines who would disagree with me.)

Sadly, Lottie has always been plagued with health problems. Mostly minor issues--but there seems to be always something. She comes from a line of show dogs and there was a lot of inbreeding. Lottie has had back problems since she was two. Due to her (many) allergies, we have her on a special diet--which works well most of the time. But sometimes Adeline feeds her cat foot and Lottie gets ear infections.

And then there are the bizarre injuries--like when she ruptured a jugular vein last year. She was the "mystery of the week" at the vet because there were no other signs of trauma to indicate how the injury occurred. And, quite a lot of money later, she was just fine.

Recently, Lottie had some other health issues--which I will write about tomorrow. But I wanted you to see her "pretty" first, as at this moment she looks a bit like "Franken-lottie". Poor sweet girl.

PS don't forget to look at Chris' blog about hiking the AT