He is half miniature Cocker Spaniel and half Shih Tzu...so that makes him a Cock-a-tzu!!! (or a Cock-a-shit, but that one is not appropriate for a general audience) He was born November 21, 2011, so that makes him about 14 months now.
Here he is about 3 1/2 months old a few days after I picked him up from the shelter. I've always loved Cocker Spaniels, and I wanted my first dog to be a Cavelier King Charles Spaniel, which pretty much looks like a little Cocker Spaniel. The only problem is these dogs are expensive. At least for my college budget..I couldn't imagine spending $600 - $800 on a dog I might not even like that much. I decided to look for a Shih Tzu because they're usually well-behaved dogs (at least several of my friends have awesome Shih Tzus), and they are generally much more affordable than my first choice breed. I kept checking local shelters online until I came across him on Petfinder.com. I instantly knew I had to have him!!! I called the shelter he was at and it turns out his first owner adopted him and his brother from a breeder, and then broke her back only a few weeks later! I fell in love with him after meeting him the first time, and he was mine just a few weeks later. True love is real people <3
In case anyone is wondering, there is a reason behind his name. I was in graduate school studying biochemistry at the time I got him (just finished my master's degree in Fall 2012), so of course I had to give him the nerdiest science name I could come up with. An Ångström (pronounced Eng-strum in English) is actually a unit of measurement used to measure distances of tiny things, such as chemical bonds and proteins (1 Å = 10^-10 meters). I was constantly thinking in Ångströms since my research was all about mutating and manipulating proteins. "How many Ångströms away from the active site is that tryptophan?" is a common question asked in the lab. His name was either going to be Ångström or Dalton, which is the unit used to measure the mass of proteins. I finally decided on Ångström in the end because he was a famous Swedish scientist, and it seemed appropriate since my sister happens to currently live in Sweden. Some people think it's a weird name and seemed confused when I tell them how to say it, but every once in awhile there is another science geek that understands how awesome his name really is.
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