Courage: The Cowardly Dog

My dog, Dixie, is the biggest wimp ever.  She hates water, of any form - rain, bath-time, pools… puddles.  She is simply terrified of water - a trait she passed down to her puppy (and our other dog), Meg.  Another one of Dixie’s biggest fears is getting her nails trimmed.  Years ago, mom accidentally trimmed one nail too short, making it bleed, and leaving Dixie with an extreme nail-cutting phobia.  To this day, merely saying, “cut” and “nails” in the same sentence sends her running, shaking like a leaf.  Seriously, the dog looks like she has a vibrating ball stuffed in her belly.  

Mom and I have this canine-anxiety inducing task down to an art form.  She will hide the doggie-nail clippers behind her back, while I sneak around to the other side of Dixie, armed with a piece of cheese as bait.  We pull a move that looks frighteningly similar to a WWE smack down - including me, completely spread on top of Dix, pinning her down with my legs.  And let me just say, the dog is strong - especially in the face of the evil nail clippers.  Mom manages to wrangle Dixie’s flying legs, trimming the nails as swiftly and carefully as possible.  Meanwhile, I am rubbing her ears, feeding her cheese (also known as her semi-effective tranquilizer), and whispering in her ear what a “big girl” she is.  Once the last nail is clipped, mom counts to three and we leap out of the way, as 4 lanky legs (with newly sharpened nails) scramble to get a footing.  She prances around the floor for awhile, seemingly proud of herself for surviving another round of torture.  And I swear the dog can smile.  She looks up at us with squinty eyes, rubs herself all over our legs, wagging her tail like crazy.  This is usually the pattern our doggie mani/pedi routine follows.  That is until today.

Mom snuck into the kitchen to get the clippers, hiding them behind her back as usual.  She trims Meg’s nails first - Meggie sleeps through the experience, completely unperturbed.  From the corner of my eye I see the backend of Dixie escaping down the hallway, and I swear, I saw the dog look over her shoulder nervously.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, she often goes into the other room to sleep on daddy’s bed (yes, our dogs know my dad as “daddy”).  A few minutes later I hear mom calling for Dix.  She’s going from room to room, looking for our missing chicken-dog.  Mom walks back to where I’m sitting, “Seriously, I can’t find her anywhere!  Where did that dog go?”  

The torn, pink camo
sweater makes her
look all the more pathetic.

I get up to help join the hunt.  I know that she was heading in the direction of the bedrooms, so I begin my own search there.  The door is shut to my sister Logan’s bedroom, and Peyton’s bedroom is also clear - leaving  only my parents bedroom left.  A cursory glance of the room revealed no Dix.  I looked in their bathroom, around there bed - nada.  On impulse I looked in their closet.  And there, safely cocooned in the darkness, was a very shaky Dixie Ann.  I’m sure if she could’ve shut the closet door she would have.  She lay there, staring up at me with big eyes, as if begging not to be put through such horrible anxiety again.  

I lay down next to her, stroking her ears and speaking baby talk, “Ohhhh.  You poor thing!  Mama, we can’t cut the poor baby’s nails!”  

Mom came in the closet and we both sat with Dix, soothing the poor dear.  I snapped a picture, but she had already stood up  - so you aren’t able to capture the pathetic hilarity of the moment.  We got up and shook our head as each other, I seriously couldn’t stop laughing!  The dog literally ran and hid in the closet!  In the dark!  Oh. My. Goodness.  

I love my animals so much, life is always more interesting with them around.  They are our babies, spoiled rotten, but I love them so!

—————————

::DISCLAIMER::

No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.