Oy Vey!

This dog!

Oy is an apple-headed mini chihuahua. His parents both weighed four pounds. Originally bought to give my daughter something to do so that my house wouldn't host a party worthy of a John Hughes movie while we were away on vacation, she named him Oy, for Oy of Midworld, a billy bumbler in Stephen King's Gunslinger series.

House-training is going slowly, mostly due to the resistance to crating him at night. He loves to sleep with Harris, so I let him.

In the mornings, he jumps up on my bed and snuggles in for another few minutes, until I get up and let him out.

But between Harrison's bed and mine, he apparently makes several 'pit stops', because by the time I get upstairs, there's Oy poo all over the place!

Another strange thing this dog does is eat anything and everything.

Grapes, green beans, cheese-its, fizzy skittles, cereal, corn on the cob, apple cores, twizzlers, popcorn... if it can be dropped on the floor, he will eat it. I recently learned just how crazy his diet is when he walked across the front porch to the tomato plants, picked a ripe tomato off the vine, and ate every bit, including the stem. I'd never seen a dog pick and eat a tomato bigger than his head before. Half an hour later, he had a steel food can. It was the tomato paste can from dinner- roasted garlic and basil flavor. He stuck his head into the can and licked out every molecule of tomato paste. He made a job of it, until he was sure it was all gone.

Tomato paste!

What dog has a tomato deficiency?

Living with Oy is like having a poltergeist in the house. He will drag one shoe from each pair to a different room, even to a different floor of the house.

In each room, you can find a collection of one shoe, from several pair.

"Where's my other shoe?"

"Well, where did you find that one?"

"By the door, but there's only one."

"Well, shoes don't just walk off by themselves, Honey."

Yeah... except sometimes they really do.

Oy makes a game of going into my room, the laundry room, any room with a hamper or dirty clothes pile, and dragging any and all unmentionables into the living room/ hallway. The more embarrassing the item is, the closer to the front door it will be found. If we cheat him out of his fun by washing our underwear, he will drag the closest thing, sometimes even a pair of Ron's jeans, into the next room.

Oy is a helpful dog. He goes under all our furniture and drags out any toys, odd socks, old magazines, used tissues (which he immediately shreds into confetti), often right before we get company. Of course, any old rotten food he finds is promptly eaten, and then brought back up in the presence of our guests.

Oy also loves Pikachu. I mean, he loves Pikachu. He stalks Pikachu. Sneaks up behind him... and pounces! He doesn't just enjoy quiet time with Pikachu, he goes into my daughter's bedroom and pulls the Pikachu slipper down the hall into the living room, to make a spectacle of his love for Pikachu.

What is it about Pikachu?

I think it's the ears.