Beyond the Surface

We worked on the ‘down’ command last night. He got lots of love and praise. I groomed him a little and played with his feet and his tail. He hates having them touched. And really, who can blame him? His toenails are cracked and probably have some sort of fungus and last time somebody touched his butt, they stuck a thermometer up it - which he was none too pleased with. But he’s getting better about it, which is good because they both need to be groomed something fierce.

Today, I took him to the pet store and we worked on not marking indoors just because it smells like other dogs. It’s hard to put 6 years of un-neutered past to rest in a couple of months. He doesn’t really play with toys so it’s hard to spoil him… but he sure does sleep a lot.. so I bought him a big cushion bed. I got him a couple of cow hooves too. We’ve tried bones but he’s not a real big chewer either. The cats wind up stealing them. Turns out though that when we got the hooves home, they were a hit. He’s been carrying it around all night.

I picked up some whitening shampoo… this time with conditioner because the kids’ watermelon conditioner smells really, really WRONG on a dog. And I got some between baths spray conditioner for the long parts of his coat. It gets so frizzy. And then we came home and I groomed him some more. Clipping a little more off the sides. He looks very westy these days with the hair down his back clipped short and the straight cut along his jaws. And still more and more maltie as his coat fills in and becomes softer and silkier - with the long silky hair on his face and that puff of a tail up over his back.

Then it was bath time. Gods, he doesn’t like the bath. But he stands there in the tub pretty quietly, while I scrub him, with those big brown imploring eyes. And if my face gets close enough, he licks me as if to apologize for hating it so much.

When he gets out of a bath is about the only time he’s playful. We play a game where I rub him with the towel and he runs a little and then comes back… or I throw the towel over his head, he struggles a little, I pull it off and he comes back for more. And then, he curls up on his new cushion bed, which he’s taken to pretty well, and he chews quietly on his hoof with a big sigh.

He’s so adorable all curled up into a little white ball on his bed. Such a sweet dog. And to think… he wouldn’t have ever wound up in such a posh sitch if someone hadn’t so obviously NOT taken care of him. He wouldn’t be SO lucky, if someone hadn’t neglected him. And maybe it sucked for him for the first 6 years of his life - and considering the condition he was in, it probably did. But had it never happened, he wouldn’t be here and I think here is a pretty damn good place to be for a dog.

It’s not even about appreciating the good times more because there were bad times. Psha. How trite. It’s about sometimes the bad times needing to bring you to the better times.