Head Hole Cleaning Day!

Anyone who lives with someone is sometimes asked to perform acts on another that they can't quite do for themselves.   I am sure you've heard...

Scratch my back!
Rub my feet!
Straighten out my haircut!

If you have a dog or cat, or any other pet for that matter, things may get more ... Intimate.  Add to it a dog who doesn't like what I call euphemistically, Personal Maintenance, and things get even more interesting.

Border Collies are widely known to be the most intelligent dog breed.  My dog speaks English.   She at least tries, and certainly understands more words than I expect her to.   I'm spelling things constantly, even when she's not around.

Border Collies do not like to have personal maintenance done to them.   Things like clipping toenails, giving them baths, getting stickers and burrs out of their feet are not a pleasant task.   It is more like Keystone Cops meet Cujo with my dog.  I've gotten snapped at while giving her a bath more times than I can count, and while she's never actually connected with me, its scary.  Having her snap at you in an enclosed bathtub while you're standing there naked will give you a new respect for Man's Best Friend.

My particular Border Collie is a leggy beast, with longer legs than I have ever seen on a Border Collie.  When she gets going, it is like watching a cross of a Giraffe and Scooby Doo trying to escape.  I just had to clean her ears out, and it is at least a three time a week job.  Tonight she had the Ear Cleaning Fluid poured into her one ear and she decided that she hated the process, she hated me, she hated the Florida Evening, and decided that she'd run into the house.   Since the ground was damp partly from the excess ear fluid and the evening dew, she got to the Florida Tiles and had to try to stop.  Her legs splayed and she skidded across my living room to a stop when she shook and rubbed her head into her dog mat.

I had to go after her because there was a second ear to do.   She saw me with the bottle of fluid in my hand and decided she wanted no part of me, outside, or anything else remotely human related and started to run off.   I say Started to because it was a Hanna-Barbera moment with legs moving very fast and no momentum happening to the body.  Just slow enough for me to grab her body and drag her out of the house to repeat the process.

Isn't Inertia a wonderful thing?

Life's all peaceful now.  Mrs Dog's ears are cleaned out for the day or two, and she's sitting quietly on her mat trying hard to ignore life in general in that lackadaisical manner that only a dog can do.

Until the day after tomorrow when it all starts over again.