Almost Traumatic

The absolute worst chore in my life is grooming ‘not so psychotic’ dog Colli - although when it comes to grooming, she is VERY psychotic!

I only have to do her face because she will not allow anybody to touch her mouth.

Because she is missing so many teeth, she is a very messy eater and she shakes and tosses her head around as she attempts to gum her food to death.

This causes food to stick and congeal to any long hair on her face and after a few weeks, it’s ugly and smelly.

At 10.45am I began the process:

1. Fill the laundry tub with warm water.
2. Put Colli in and wet her face down … often … hoping to wet and loosen the congealed food, spit, dried tears and anything else that she’s managed to attract to her face.
3. Keep her there for as long as possible and clean the rest of her while she’s there.
4. Wrap her tightly in a towel so that she can’t move her body, lay her on a thickly folded towel in the washing basket and attempt to snip the clumpy bits off with fine sharp scissors.
5. Continue trying (unsuccessfully) for about 15 minutes.
6. Replace the dirty water in the tub with clean warm water.
7. Put Colli back into the tub and repeat the wetting and loosening for another 15 minutes.
8. Have a visitor (Mrs Bucket) come stand in the laundry for 30 minutes talking a mile a minute while I continue to work (unsuccessfully) on Colli.
9. Visitor leaves and I again wrap Colli tightly in the towel and take her out to the pool area under Bali hut.
10. I place her body securely under my arm and begin snipping.
11. BGWLBH offers to hold Colli’s head (unsuccessfully) while I snip.
12. I pull the towel over Colli’s eyes and attempt (somewhat successfully) to snip around her mouth, chin and nose.
13. Colli is tiring (as am I) and stops fighting my attempts. I can snip the muck from around her eyes and finally, after more than 90 minutes, the job is done.

She is a tiny Shih Tzu cross Maltese. Her face is smaller than a tennis ball for crying out loud. This chore should take two minutes! Even the dog groomers won’t attempt touching her face anymore.

This chore is freaking traumatic! For both of us!

I was mentally and emotionally exhausted by the end of it and was incapable of considering any other chores for the day.

Instead, we all sat under the Bali hut playing trivia for the afternoon.

I made a terrible dinner of mushroom chicken and pasta with salad and Turkish bread. Adoring Husband seemed to enjoy it but it was a big fat fail for me. 

We played some more trivia before BGWLBH went to bed exhausted and AH and I watched the footy.

Now it’s time for bed.

Nite all.