He is an exceedingly small animal fully invested in his creature comforts. Long gone the days of impetuous curiosity and energetic demonstrations of his youth. When I could hardly keep up to his impatient pace, when he consistently got into more trouble than I might have imagined possible for a small, rotund bundle of canine personality. Now, at the age of eleven, he resembles a little old man whose approach to everything is cautious pessimism.

Give him the opportunity to sit basking in the sun and his satisfaction reaches completion. He anticipates his comfort, and being warm and ensconced in an atmosphere conducive to comfort is what he seeks. His world revolves around placidly seeking comfort. Of course he is also entirely devoted to consuming food, and the more he can get the more happy he feels about his quotidian lot. Food and the warmth of the sun succinctly sums up his entitled expectations.

Daily exercise for this little fellow is not a choice but an imposition. While it is to his health advantage to go out for daily walks regardless of the weather, and certainly throughout our long, cold winters, he would, if he had the choice, allow us to go out on our own, while he remained behind in the house, sad to be alone, but happy enough not to be out and about.

He does abhor the cold. We discovered while he was still young that as soon as September rounded the weather horizon he would begin to shiver. Dressing him in a baby-sized warming tee-shirt helped enormously and he thereafter acquired a fall and winter wardrobe. On really cold days he is dressed in a shirt plus a doggy coat and home-made boots to ensure he doesn't freeze on our hour-long forays.

And the little fellow endures the indignity of our encouragement to get along. To which he responds will ill grace and the slowest imaginable gait.