Grooming Button
She's getting old, not merely older, and we worry about her, simply cannot imagine life without her. After all, she has shared our lives for the past fifteen years. A furry, skinny black button of a neglected puppy when we rescued her from a nearby pet shop, she became our charge, and we took that post seriously. We had the leisure to do so, after all, since our children had long since become adults and taken on their own independence.
She has been our treasured companion, a small animal who shares our home, and who takes our love for her for granted, and returns it through her dependence on us, and her pleasure in our company. We're all she's really ever known. Yet she's an independent little animal, and we'd have it no other way. She has a calm temperament and is quite capable of communicating with us. It's the way she uses her body, and the sounds she makes.
Although it's not human-speak, she voices well enough her insistent needs, and we respond. She's inordinately more clever than little Riley, half her age. He was supposed to be a companion for her, but we waited too long, and brought him home when she was already seven years of age, and accustomed to ruling the roost. She had no curiosity about him, and in fact viewed his bumptious young presence with overt suspicion, and no little distaste.
Still, they're our companions, although not together companionable. We did think it would be otherwise. They manage somehow to accommodate themselves to each others' presence, without impinging upon one another's consciousness. Riley would have had it otherwise, but Button delineated the relationship; remote, disinterested, and so it has remained. Unlike Button, Riley is emotionally needy and needs cuddling.
She's deaf, unable to hear anything we say any longer, but alert to whatever we're doing and familiar enough with routine to interpret correctly what she sees. And what she smells; that remains intact, her sense of smell, and her eyesight is still very good, so no complaints there. She's losing her teeth, though, despite that they've been assiduously brushed as part of her daily hygiene and grooming routine.
It hasn't stopped her from eating normally, for which we're grateful. But we have noted that she isn't very well padded, has lost weight, and she's become quite lean. Not obvious to the onlooker because of her haircoat, but when we handle her we know all those sharp angles. We've chosen to ourselves groom them rather than take them to dog grooming salons, and do quite well with an assortment of scissors.
Button, however, detests the process, and protests by struggling at the most awkward times. Still we persist; me with my determination to mow her unruly mop, and she with her detestation of the assaultive process. She heartily dislikes anyone touching her front paws, and they, like the hind ones, require grooming, as does her hairy little face. When I'm finally finished trimming her hair she looks neat and trim.
And she scampers away, relieved that the ordeal has been completed. Whereupon Riley creeps reluctantly forward, well aware that it's his turn. Trimming Button's hair can take upwards of three-quarters of an hour; Riley's considerably less. He's smaller, although she is small enough, and he hasn't quite the amount of hair she has, nor does it grow as speedily as does hers. He's unhappily compliant and that helps.
And then comes bath time. Poodles, bred as water dogs, enjoy the water. Button always has, loving a leap into a lake on a hot summer day, and she will dive and fetch stones or sticks that she has scented and which we will toss one time after another for her excited retrieval. Stolid, solid little Riley will evade, however he can, being immersed in water. It's a miserable experience he heartily dislikes.
Two and a half hours will do the entire process, and then they look absolutely splendid for another week. That's how long, it seems to me, it takes before they begin once again taking on an unkempt aspect, despite that - or perhaps because of - my brushing their hair every night.
She has been our treasured companion, a small animal who shares our home, and who takes our love for her for granted, and returns it through her dependence on us, and her pleasure in our company. We're all she's really ever known. Yet she's an independent little animal, and we'd have it no other way. She has a calm temperament and is quite capable of communicating with us. It's the way she uses her body, and the sounds she makes.
Although it's not human-speak, she voices well enough her insistent needs, and we respond. She's inordinately more clever than little Riley, half her age. He was supposed to be a companion for her, but we waited too long, and brought him home when she was already seven years of age, and accustomed to ruling the roost. She had no curiosity about him, and in fact viewed his bumptious young presence with overt suspicion, and no little distaste.
Still, they're our companions, although not together companionable. We did think it would be otherwise. They manage somehow to accommodate themselves to each others' presence, without impinging upon one another's consciousness. Riley would have had it otherwise, but Button delineated the relationship; remote, disinterested, and so it has remained. Unlike Button, Riley is emotionally needy and needs cuddling.
She's deaf, unable to hear anything we say any longer, but alert to whatever we're doing and familiar enough with routine to interpret correctly what she sees. And what she smells; that remains intact, her sense of smell, and her eyesight is still very good, so no complaints there. She's losing her teeth, though, despite that they've been assiduously brushed as part of her daily hygiene and grooming routine.
It hasn't stopped her from eating normally, for which we're grateful. But we have noted that she isn't very well padded, has lost weight, and she's become quite lean. Not obvious to the onlooker because of her haircoat, but when we handle her we know all those sharp angles. We've chosen to ourselves groom them rather than take them to dog grooming salons, and do quite well with an assortment of scissors.
Button, however, detests the process, and protests by struggling at the most awkward times. Still we persist; me with my determination to mow her unruly mop, and she with her detestation of the assaultive process. She heartily dislikes anyone touching her front paws, and they, like the hind ones, require grooming, as does her hairy little face. When I'm finally finished trimming her hair she looks neat and trim.
And she scampers away, relieved that the ordeal has been completed. Whereupon Riley creeps reluctantly forward, well aware that it's his turn. Trimming Button's hair can take upwards of three-quarters of an hour; Riley's considerably less. He's smaller, although she is small enough, and he hasn't quite the amount of hair she has, nor does it grow as speedily as does hers. He's unhappily compliant and that helps.
And then comes bath time. Poodles, bred as water dogs, enjoy the water. Button always has, loving a leap into a lake on a hot summer day, and she will dive and fetch stones or sticks that she has scented and which we will toss one time after another for her excited retrieval. Stolid, solid little Riley will evade, however he can, being immersed in water. It's a miserable experience he heartily dislikes.
Two and a half hours will do the entire process, and then they look absolutely splendid for another week. That's how long, it seems to me, it takes before they begin once again taking on an unkempt aspect, despite that - or perhaps because of - my brushing their hair every night.
Labels: Companions, Family
posted by Pieface @ 5:41 PM
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