Hi All

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I am Cathy, from Kansas City, MO. I have two shih tzu, Josie, who is four years old TODAY. She is a black and white parti. Maddy is a white/gold and he will be 2 next month. These two are my "life"...I spoil them rotten and LOVE them to death.

I can't wait to make friends here and am looking forward to spending some time reading some past posts.

Also, if anyone here can help me, I am looking to register Josie as a pet therapy dog. I have started the ball rolling, but I know we have a long way to go. We need to go back to square one on obedience training, it has been a long time and I guess we have gotten lax.....I have a friend that has two tzu registered and she finds it so rewarding.

So with that, I will close and go do some reading.

Well it's always good to have members from across the pond your fur baby's are very cute

Hello there and to the forum from Julie , Phoebe & Sophia.

from me too, your babies are stunning

Welcome. Josie looks to be the mishevious one and Maddy is really cute.

Hi, great to have you here your babies are gorgeous!

I don't know about how to register them as therapy dogs tbh, but I know another member, BlueSkyMom wanted to register her puppy to do the same.. not heard how she has got on with that though.

Thank you, all for such a nice welcome.

Claire, I see your Lexie appears to be "odd eyed", that being one blue and one brown. Not sure if you noticed, both my tzus have one blue and one brown....

You all have such adorable siggies, I will have to try to get my Christmas one. I have a fall one, I will have to go and attach it.

Sandra, when you mention "across the pond", are most members from Europe? I LOVE it there, I spent four years in England, in fact my daughter was born there.

most of us hail from the UK but also have a member from France and Spain and a couple of other european contry's

Yes Lexie has one blue and the other half blue and half brown, they call it wall eye. It's common in the merles as their genetics contain a colour dilution gene, giving them the blue eyes.

Nyssa's Peerie is a shih tzu who has a lovely blue eye too

In the USA for most therapy dogs, you generally get your dog it's Canine Good Citizen (CGC) through AKC. Even if your dog is not AKC registered (I don't know if yours are or not) you can still take the test and get the certification. After that if you have a local chapter of Delta Dogs, they do specialized training for hospital visiting/nursing homes/schools that you can test through and certify.

I have done this with all my dogs. We visit a children's hospital quite often. Hope that helps.

Oh and welcome!

Thanks Michelle, I hope to hear more about your dogs doing their visits, it must be so very rewarding.

I went last week to a "meet up" group with therapy teams and two different organizations, one being Delta Society. I am scheduled for a "human class" with them in January and really can't wait. It seems so far away. I have a lot of time to do this and I hope it all goes well getting the registration.

I am taking Josie through first....Maddy is a little on the "lickey, lickey" side and I know that is NOT acceptable, but we are working on it. Any suggestions of course are most appreciated.

Welcome too the group!
Ruth

from all of us!!!

from us tooo

Hi Cathy! So glad you are here!! And I hope Miss Josie had a spoiled rotten birthday!!!