Technical Difficulties

Due to Technical Difficulties, I have been unable to post on my blogs for the past two weeks.  Posting will begin again next week. 

He Sheds

             It seems I am never too old to learn new things. My daughter has two dogs. A Labrador retriever named Santana and a Siberian husky named Snyder. I knew both were kept in their fenced back yard. When coming into the driveway, the gate to the back yard is straight before you. I generally took the two dogs for granted. They did their routine barking as visitors came. And then, they would stop. But it was not any barking that day that caught me eyes. I shouted out!

            “What’s wrong with Snyder?” I asked.

            “Nothing!” replied my daughter.

            “But look at his fur!” I shouted.

            It brought only laughter as my daughter proceeded to tell me.

            “Did you not know that Siberian husky’s shed their fur?”

            “I read St. Bernard’s did. Whether any other dog did or not, I never read anything about it. I guess it comes from not being an owner of one.”

            “Well, they do shed their coats. I can’t afford that groomer. We do it ourselves. And just recently a friend came over and we were both in the back yard pulling dead hair from his coat. We stopped well before finishing as mosquitoes like to have eaten us up. I guess there’s some stagnant water around. I need to get back out there and start the process again.”

            “Can you just shave him?”

            “No,” became her startled reply, “You never do that. It can irritate his skin.”

            I now have pictured in my mind that coat. That dog would lose enough to make a pillow.

            With any animal there comes a responsibility. Sometimes feeding is not enough. Of course there are the shots, taking to a vet, etc. Calling to mind, I remember this one time my husband tried taking a bath with our dog. Thinking our dog would get his bath this way. Duh! It was a bad idea. The dog put scratches everywhere on him with his attempt to escape. At the time, it wasn’t funny. But it is now as I think back. It just proves we care for our dogs.

            As for a dog that sheds like Snyder does, I never had one like that. But as humans, we are not beyond going that extra mile for our love of dog. If Snyder were mine, I’d be doing the same thing. I’d be out there cleaning his shedding coat.