Dagnabbit

SUMMARY: Teeters and toenails

I'm not usually very good about trimming my dogs' toenails. As I've mentioned before, Tika's hardly ever need it, and neither did Jake's or Remington's, or even Amber's or Sheba's, for that matter. So the fact that Boost's grow so long so quickly (it seems) is a problem for me.

I *did* think to actually trim them (Dremelling) before our last trial 2 weeks ago. AND I remembered to trim them again last week. AND I remembered to check them again this morning, and by golly, Boost's looked long enough to dig the Mariana Trench in my back yard. How is that even possible? I trimmed the first few, but then she fought me ferociously when I tried to do her--uh--pointer finger on her right front foot. I couldn't figure it out for a while, except that she'd let me do the others, but absolutely not that one. Finally discovered that she had cracked it on the underside, maybe 2/3 of the way towards the tip, into the quick.

This explains why, for the last few days, I keep thinking she's limping, but then when I watch closely, she's fine.

I gave up on Mister Dremel and managed to get one snip using the old standby doggie nail clippers, which she yelped at but at least I took off a little of the length.

Thing is, if I try to clip any more, I'll be hitting the very tip of her quick, looks like from here.

In class last night, too, never noticed a limp except, same as it's been, "was that a limp? oh, hmm, no, she looks fine now", and she was fine... Except for coming off the side of the *!@&@*%# teeter. Really, she used to have a BEAUTIFUL teeter that people would say, "I want my dog's teeter to be like Boost's!" Apparently I've completely ruined that somehow. Dang relaxed criteria. I did drag the teeter out into the yard after the last trial, and then Things got in the way--it was my last week at my current client, so more hours than usual trying to clean things up; got very sick Friday and so didn't have it in me to do much of anything on Saturday either, gone Sunday. Rained several days this week.

Anyway, point is, I was thinking now that the sun is out again, I'd do a ton of teeters with her today and tomorrow in preparation for Sunday's trial. (We're staying home Saturday so I can attend a friend's father's memorial service.)

But with a damaged toenail, nope, don't want to be doing anything at all with her today and tomorrow, and am mulling over calling the vet in the morning and seeing whether he'd trim another eighth of an inch off the end into the quick, or what... worried about running her on sunday either way, but I know that if I take her and do nothing with her, she'll be stir crazy by the end of the day.

Not to mention for the next 2 days! She's already antsy because I didn't do the usual walkies and playtime before dinner this evening.

Decisions, decisions...

Meanwhile, Tika *walked* through the tunnels last night in class, even the straight ones. OK, it had been raining earlier in the day and everything was wet. This just tells me again that Tika's getting older and more cautious, whether it's her bones or her eyes or what. Not sure she's going to be competing for another year. Makes me sad. But she seemed to be jumping well.

Expecting good weather for this weekend, for a change I'm not working any key position at the trial, and the trial is on the smaller side again, about 80 dogs in Masters/P3, so Sunday should be fun and fairly relaxing. I hope.

So that's our lives at the moment.