Got clippers?

The post-bath fuzz look.

Sheila Tay brought her portable grooming salon to the house and gave Alanis an excellent 'airecut.

What does a dog do, first thing off the grooming table? Drink water and get her beautifully brushed fuzzy face all wet.

Camera? Treats!

Ticklish feet

I tried to teach Miro foot-handling the same way I taught The So-Perfect Darwin. From the time I brought him home at eight weeks, I'd run my hand all over him down to the feet. Randomly I'd pick up a foot and let go before he jerked his leg away. That was the routine: pick up foot, play with toes, release, treat.

He never got used to it.

When the first nail-trimming time came, I tried to introduce him to the Dremel. Most dogs prefer it to a clipper. Whoa! he went, squirming all over the way you would hearing fingernails screeching on a blackboard (what can we say now that we use whiteboards and markers?). So I switched to a clipper. Alanis insists on a Dremel and sometimes leans her whole weight, which is only 45 lbs, on me like a horse when I'm holding her foot.

the instruments of torture

When I trimmed around Miro's feet with a scissors and clipped the fur between his toes with a #40 blade on the electric clipper, his foot would jerk at a touch even when the rest of him was standing still and relaxed on the table. Slowly I realized there's more here than a dog not wanting his feet held. His feet are ticklish.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

The well-trimmed foot that grew out in about five minutes. Note the remodeled corner of the bed.

not eaten in the night

After staying up late computer-wrangling, I showed up at the chicken pen later than intended this morning. Chickens inside the barn complained loudly at their confinement--I don't know why, since they had the food. Zora and Edna were wandering around in the pen, whining as if it were my fault that they got lost during the night. Good thing they didn't go over the fence this time. They're all in lockdown until I clip the bantams' wings again.