The Luck Dragon

Our puppy, no dog, at this point—I think we should only call her a dog in fairness because in size, no one would guess she’s still a puppy of only seven months.   She’s twenty-five pounds, probably more, I haven’t weighed her in a while.   She’s meaty while being light-boned enough to move around delicately.   That is unless she’s overjoyed to see you because you’re one of her special people—then she’ll try and bowl you over with enthusiasm, which we’re working on (the bowling over, not the enthusiasm).

Her hair/fur continues to grow while she continues to lighten up in overall coloration.   I didn’t want to cut it until we had to, what with that soft puppy fur would only be around once.   I brushed her regularly and dealt with sticks and leaves sticking in her fur because she was just too fuzzy and cute.   Then we went on vacation.

Nine days without being brushed and her ears were matted in the back beyond the point of salvaging. There were mats on her legs and then there was the problem of the sticky bush.

The sticky bush is a strange bush.   It has these leaves that stick to the dogs fur and won’t be washed out, even with soap.   It has fine little grabber fibers that cling to the dog’s fur and have to be hand-picked out.   I’ve been pulling forty or more of these little bush leaves out every day since we returned home.   I didn’t think it would be a problem once the bush came back into spring leaves, but it did and for the life of me I can’t find where she’s getting the supply of old, dead leaves to stick to her, especially since there’s only one of these bushes and it’s outside the range of her reach in the yard.

Yesterday I’d had enough and scheduled her for a full grooming today.   I warned the children her baby fur would be gone.   We took pictures and said goodbye.   Today I talked to the groomer about just how much of the beard to keep and how much to cut off (most of it off).   How long would her body fur be?  Medium long, but shorter by far than it was.

When I picked her up I was worried I wouldn’t like how she would look.   But I did.   She has a softer face in appearance and her body is much nicer with the shorter cut.   I texted Liz, who has the other Wheaten four months older than Matisse, that I was reminded of The Luck Dragon from The Neverending Story movie when she came home.   Liz said how singular, she had had the exact same thought about Theo when she’d first had him trimmed.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is really good at trying to manipulate a situation.   He’s anonoyingly good at it.   And while it’s frustrating at the time as a parent to deal with it, I’m pretty impressed at how he works a situation with reason and rationale.

The Tiny Girl Chronicle:  At one point when we were in Maui, my daughter threw a tantrum in which she exclaimed, “I don’t like Hawaii.  Can we go to Kauai?"