Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Grieving the loss...




I love Shih Tzus. Here I am on round two, having withstood the enormous pressure to "rescue" a canine, and instead paid the bigger bucks for my favorite darling pooch, "Mooch". I do believe that was a rescue of somekind however, since he was already born and all, he needed a home as much as the next pup, so anyway. What I love most of all is that cute Ewok kind of face framed by those big fluffy ears. I am not into the long hair all over and all the combing and the bow on top of the head thing. Let those that are go ahead, but Dell and I have much too much to experience together to leave enough time for combing the dog. I am lucky to get a comb through my own fur once a day, the dog just doesn't make it that far up the priority list. But I do go for the once a month trip to the dog parlor (my dog not me) for a bath, trim and a little spray of dog cologne. Diversion...can't quite picture the lab (as in laboratory, not Laborador) that got the grant to test and discover a scent perfectly suited for canines but glory to the one who convinced somebody to fund that experiment! Anyway, back to the grief thing. When I took the Mooch in yesterday for his monthly day at the dog spa, I told them his ears were kind of matted, which is code for "really matted but I don't want you to think I expect you to charge me more". They responded, "do you want us to just trim them up to his earlobes?" I am totally ignorant about a dog's earlobes, which turns out to be bad news for both of us. "Sure, I said" thinking I was giving them permission to take care of the mats without charging me more and without the embarrasing reveal-I don't know where his earlobes are exactly. Turns out his earlobes are attached to the side of his tiny little head, duh! like ours. I guess I assumed that they dangled at the bottom of his long ears. Well, at least I thought they were long ears. Apparently, the long part of his ears was the hair and mats. D (a southern husband) and the Deeds went together to pick him up from the parlor and when they got home I shrieked. I mean mostly on the inside because as a mother of 3 and now grandmother, I have learned the required self control when seeing your child look alarmingly weird and not reacting in a way that will damage their self esteem or scare them into their own shrieking fit, or in this case bark! My darling dog does not even resemble himself. I am so glad nearly all mirrors in our house are above the human waist (not waste, though also true) level so that he doesn't yet know how darling he is not anymore. I am trying to love him just the same and stop saying "I love you even though you are ugly now", out loud anyway. So, here is the dog makeover picture, which I must say is even difficult to post. But I know one of the steps of grief is acceptance, I hope it is the last step and doesn't last until the long grows back on his ears. I feel like the Deeds, when he told Papa to shave his mustache back on! Which makes me wonder if they might have saved all that hair, you know to donate or something and I could make him a hairpiece...because you know, I would be the one needing a little hair PEACE!

1 comment:

Julie said...

Wow! This made me laugh so hard and I thank you for that because now I know for sure I DO have abs because geeze they hurt from laughing!!!

But no I'm not really laughing at the Mooch yet at the awesome way you told the story! ; ) I just wonder what thought he's thinking as he gets weird looks from his momma and family and keeps having pics taken!