Monday, June 13, 2011

Rosie in Action

Rosie sniffing my chocolate sun flower
She's so photogenic. I swear she can be a doggy model.


Rosie Diary- Daily life of Rosie the Therapy Dog

Rosie Diary is a tribute to our dog Rosie who works 5 days a week as a therapy dog. She didn't receive any training to be a therapy dog but all of our patients want to have her around when they get their treatments. We use red infra lamps during acupuncture treatments and she likes to take naps with the patients in 25 minute increments. I was inspired to write about Rosie on my blog when a patient said that she was a unique dog.

My mom's shitzu, Rosie, is our acupuncture clinic's therapy dog and she is beloved by everyone.
One of Rosie's houses at our clinic
Rosie turned 6 years in April and she weighs 4 pounds as of today. She has a strange habit of sleeping between our patients' legs while they are receiving their acupuncture treatments. The dog loves warm places and she naps about every 2 hours for about an hour.


Basically she's my mom's little princess. Not only does she eat human food, she only eats human food that's been heated in the microwave and cut into bite size pieces. She does not like to eat fish, eggs or shrimp but loves beef, pork and chicken. However, she does not eat all red meat, the meat has to be prepared  and marinated in a certain way or else she refuses to eat and throws up stomach acid on our carpet.

This morning before heading out to work my mom sliced up pieces of medium rare steak and mixed in steamed rice in her bowl. Rosie being the picky eater gave the bowl a sniff and turned her head indicating that she was displeased with her meal, which lead to projectile vomiting in the kitchen. She reminds me of Paris Hilton and her strike against using the prison toilet in front of her inmates by refusing to intake her meals.

I wondered if all shitzus behaved this way because they were bred to be lap dogs in China. When will the spoiling of the dog come to an end? Will Rosie ever learn to accept her meal and realize that she is fortunate to be living in such luxurious conditions? For God's sake, she has over 40 designer dresses and 7 doggy houses not including the ones we've previously thrown away. I feel that Rosie acts this way because we've always treated her like a princess; feeding her organic vegetables, cold iced tea, freshly grilled beef and crunchy gourmet dessert cookies.

Is it our fault that we decided to treat dogs equal to humans?