The Wait Is On

 

Starting off, I think that Lizzie had a good day today. This in spite of the fact that she was: 1) left alone for several hours; 2) was startled by the peculiar sounds emanating from the creatures on the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King; and 3) got her nails trimmed and filed.

I've been reluctant to trim her nails for several reasons:

1. Like most people I don't look forward to it (understatement.)
2. My trusty guillotine style nail trimmers are very dull.
3. Lizzie has behaved well, but skittish during past trimmings.
4. I have a new Dremel Rotary Tool here and a Peticure Safe Guard on order.

Once I did the research and decided to order the Peticure Safe Guard I wanted it yesterday. The website says, "Expect four to six weeks shipping due to demand." I'm really hoping to be surprised by it arriving much earlier. I wasn't successful in finding an effective guillotine style trimmer to use, which made me feel more anxious about her lengthening nails. The brand new ones I tried performed worse than my current "old" one.

For tonight's nail trimming I put her on a bed with a towel under her, and cut only the very tip of each nail off before "going crazy" with the nail file. I was calm and assertive (does that sound familiar?) and she remained calm and trusting. Yay Lizzie!

She's very calm when left home alone, which is vastly different from how it was with my last dog, Tucker. I'm not sure she'll ever get used to thunderstorms, lawnmowers, and loud movies, but I feel good knowing I give her comfort just by being beside her and remaining calm.

She also seems to be getting more playful. She aggressively chews on her Nylabone several times per day. She's taken a shine to her rope chew AND to her "fluffy man" toy. She gets highly animated with them, which makes her humans happy. We all get extremely silly when she gets silly. Good fun all around, I'd say.