Poor, poor Abby!

The indignities that the poor thing puts up with! The baby talk. The playing dress-up. The doggie dance recitals. Etcetera, etcetera. We're lucky she's so tiny!

Last night she snuggled up to my side and I idly rubbed her belly while I read The Hound Of The Baskervilles (appropriate, huh?). I felt a matte on her and put the book aside and reached for the scissors to get rid of the matte. The problem is that I can never seem to stop cutting once I begin. It usually starts with a few little snips when the hair on her face grows in front of her eyes and ends with her whole head a messy chop-job. I can't get it nice and even with scissors. We used to have a shih-tzu named Katie that suffered through the same thing. Katie & I got snowed in alone together once and our heater was broken, but it was New Years weekend and there were no repairmen available. The two of us were confined to one room with a space heater. By the end of the ordeal poor Katie was bald. And traumatized. For the next three years she would sneak off to her kennel whenever she saw scissors in my hand. We wouldn't see her for hours when I did needlework. Anyway, I set out last night to rid Abby of one matte and I trimmed until she started heaving. I think she got too warm. She's a mess! There's a bare spot on her nose. One ear looks longer than the other. She has little tags sticking out all over that will bug the heck out of me until I get them. I'll have to catch her first. Poor baby!