adventures with my wilson

I did not know that labs drool as much as mine does. Nor did I ever in a million years think they would shed as bad as mine does. How can he possibly have any hair left, I wonder? And his nails. Oh dear, his nails. I did what the vet said to do, play with his feet as much as possible. And I even attempted cutting them a few times. But all of a sudden he's got this phobia of us touching his feet. Heaven forbid he sees you with the clippers in your hand, cause you're not getting anywhere near his nails with those. Sunday morning he had a traumatic experience as he found out what it felt like to have the quick cut along with the nail. That thing bled and bled. So thank goodness for the folks at the PetSmart and their head harnesses. For 9 bucks we can take him in for a little "pawdicure." Maybe my dad can whip us up one of those head harnesses in the welding shop. It's for your grandpup after all. And I'm out of a job, so 9 bucks is 9 bucks.

Willy-poo's nose is healing up nicely. It took a while because he kept bumping it on everything and it would start bleeding again. A little Neosporin seems to be doing the trick.

He thinks hostas are a healthy snack choice. Same with my begonias. He's picked every single one of them suckers off.

Yesterday afternoon I took him for a walk. We went on one of our regular routes which passes through a neighborhood of identical rental houses we have dubbed "Plainville." (A little back history,  we took a tour of one once when we were getting ready to move out of the apartment, but got a better deal on 84th St. So though we never lived in Plainville, we now live by it.) Anyway, on one of these streets, there are a couple of dogs that have been going, shall we say, a little bit crazy when we walk by. There are usually kids on the trampoline and they are always very apologetic about these two out of control canines. Once when Phil and I were out walking Wilson, I thought for sure one of them was going to come at us from under the fence and eat our feet off. They were pushing on it so hard that the bottom of the fence kept lifting up. Well, yesterday, one of them jumped up high enough that he got his front paws over the fence and was able to push himself over. This is at least a six foot chain link fence with slats that a dog smaller than mine managed to clear. It scared the living daylights out of me. I'm talkin' heart palpitations here, people.

If you can picture this, two dogs now going crazy, me trying to keep my dog from getting bit again, and the girl going pyscho yelling at me to please grab her dog by the collar so he doesn't go in the street. I'm thinking, "ya right, lady. who do you think i am, the dog whisperer?" It was insane. They managed to throw over the other dog's leash and by some small miracle I was able to get it hooked on without getting bit. Wilson apparently made a new friend. And they were glad that I saved their dog from getting run over by a car.

Tune in next time for more stories of how my life has changed and how I'm more apt to have a heart attack now that I have a dog.