A New Do

Today we took the dogs to get their nails trimmed and to get a little grooming done. Okay, a sanitary cut because my mom insists on wiping them and it's easier to find the target when there's less hair...I know you're thinking about it and making a 'gross' face. Don't.

Normally, for Lilah's nails I try to trim them myself. It involves me following her around the breakfast room for an hour and trying to clip a single nail. She's one of those fussy dogs that doesn't really like her feet being touched, squeezed or gripped. But if I keep at it long enough, she gives up and resigns herself to getting her nails clipped. It's not like I clip it so close it bleeds, so I don't know what her problem is.

I've never had to clip Ritter's nails because for some reason they just don't seem to get that long. Which kind of doesn't make sense when you compare him to Lilah. Lilah runs around a lot, so you would think her nails would wear down from all the activity. Ritter doesn't move nearly as much as Lilah, and yet his are usually short while Lilah's are long like claws. But my mom likes it when the fur between the dogs' pads is clipped short, so she pretty much gets his nails trimmed for that extra service.

For the sanitary trim, I don't mind doing it myself with some scissors. However I'm pretty sure my mom calls it a hack job behind my back. We did take Lilah to PetSmart once to get her nails clipped, pads trimmed, and sanitary cut. It was a disaster that left everyone exasperated and very annoyed.

Strangely though, the dogs seem relatively calm and easier to handle at the vet's. I have a sneaking suspicion that they drugged Lilah because she wasn't nearly as restless throughout the day and there was a suspicious "assistant technician fee"...perhaps the fee required for the guy administering her shot?

For what it costs though, I'd rather spend two hours following Lilah around the house trying to clip her nails and trim her fur. Ritter, well that's my mom's responsibility...

After months, we're free!

For the past few months, we've had to coordinate letting our dogs into the backyard with our neighbor. Our old, dilapidated, rustic-looking fence finally collapsed under the weight of the neighbor's dog, an enthusiastic pit bull-mix puppy. W (for the sake of anonymity) liked to jump on the fence and try to get over to our side, either driven by the desire for new human acquaintances or by the allure of both Lilah and Ritter. Just for the record, W succeeded a couple times in crossing over to our yard.

Well, Ritter would have nothing of the sort and the two would have at it (Lilah doesn't really notice the presence of other dogs). At first we all tried to mend the fence with wooden planks, particle board, metal grates, and poles to prop up the fence. All it did was offer W more purchase when trying to jump up the fence. So, in order to keep the peace and what little hope we had of preserving the fence, we had to call our neighbor and make sure that her dogs (W and B, a friendly, but older black lab) were in when ours were to go out.

It was inconvenient, tiring, annoying and sometimes not well coordinated. It created a lot of stress for dogs and humans alike.

So my mom and our neighbor finally came to an agreement. After this past week of workmen chopping down five huge trees and putting in a brand new fence, the dogs were finally able to run free in a much wider yard without worry of an unexpected puppy visitor.