Toe Woes

Sailor here.

Today was grooming day. Mom got out the brush carrier and I hupped onto the raised hearth. This is a much happier place to be groomed than the top of my crate because it is not at all tippy and I get cookies! Mom sprayed and sprayed. Then she brushed and brushed. I stood and stood and then sat and had to stand and tried to sit, but ended up standing. Mom really means it when she says, "On your feet." Mom says I am pretty good about being groomed because even though I really don't much like it, I stand for it. Hahahahaha! But I really don't like my tail groomed or my kilts.

She trimmed the back of my back legs, she trimmed my cute little feet, she trimmed the bottoms of my pads. I drooled because it tickled! She got out the toenail clipper and that's when things went south. She was almost through, was on the next-to-last nail, and one of us jumped. I don't think it was me, really I don't. I am not wonderful about holding my feet still in Mom's paw, but I really don't think I moved. Mom says I did. She cut my nail too close to the quick and it bled. It bled and bled. She dipped it in cornstarch. It stopped bleeding. I licked it. It bled.

Finally it stopped bleeding. What a relief!

Mom released me from the hearth and I did my happy dance and got a cookie. Then I had to go outside to, well, er, to go outside. After going, so to speak, I lay down on the deck and started licking my toe again. The cornstarch tasted good. My toe bled again. I noticed these nifty red blotches all over the deck. Mom was not pleased. She actually said she was mad at herself for being careless. I agreed with her. Maybe this would get me more cookies. It did not. It got me a rinse with the hose in very cold water. That stopped the bleeding. Then Mom rinsed the deck and the deck stopped bleeding, too.

On a happier note, today is New Year's Eve and it is also Katy's birthday. Katy and Erik and Zoe are coming for dinner! I hope Mom lets me run around outside with Zoe and forgets the toenail thing. Maybe if Zoe and I are underpaw in the kitchen again, we will get kicked out and can run through the backyard and over the bushes (Zoe) and through the bushes (me). I love to fly through the lavender and roll in the rosemary. Maybe Zoe's mud hole is still there.

For her birthday, Katy got a new lens for her camera and I hope she takes pictures of me in all my gloriosity. She can take a few of Zoe, too, because even though I am more beautiful, Zoe is really cute. And boy, is she ever fast!

I hope Mom doesn't remember about the mud wallow, though. I want to watch Zoe's white fur turn black again. Now that was fun!

Photograph printed with permission of Illon at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/illonahaus/