Author: Xena, Lucy and Chia

Friday I was the official garage sale pup. Since my dear friend Mr. Purrince Henry taught me how to count, I was able to help Mommy know what number to put on the stickers with that funny $ in front of them. 

The first thing to sell 87 minutes before the sale even opened was Santa Claus.  Nothing else in this picture sold at all today, but lots of other stuff we don’t have pictures for did. I laid sweetly in Mommy’s lap and let everyone pet me. I was what is called the PR Dog. I even helped Mommy get a new dog to groom, a Bishon Frise. The nice man is going to make an appointment because the last place he took Max – Max is his dog’s name – they cut all the hair off his tail. I don’t see the problem, but if it gets Mommy a new dog to groom, that’s good.

I got rewarded with blueberries. When Mommy closed the box, I pushed it all over the driveway, but couldn’t get it opened. Mommy said I had to do a little more work for pay, so we worked on my newest Agility Won exercises. I had to sit still and not get up or scoot while Mommy walked away from me (with the blueberries), then walked back right past me, circling around my tail end, and then around to my front. I moved my head to follow her, but that’s all, just like I was supposed to do. Mommy said I was a very good girl and I got more blueberries. Not too many, though, ’cause too many gives me the squirts…blue squirts.

There was so much stuff left that we are going to do it all again Saturday. My peeps brother Adam is going to help while Mommy grooms three dogs.

That reminds me, but I am going to whisper so Mommy doesn’t hear me telling you. Last Sunday she was sitting in the window chair in the front room and started feeling something stinging her back. It got her really good, and around on her belly too. When she lifted her shirt, a fire ant dropped, and she thought it fell into her pants. So right there she stripped off all… oh never mind, Lucy is making the cut motion with her paw. Anyhow, Slider and Peyton came to get groomed, and even though the bites were swollen up like lakes, she went downstairs to groom them. Pretty soon she used her phone to call Daddy who was upstairs and told him she needed benadryl right away, and being a good Daddy he put down his work and brought her some. A little while later, after Slider had his bath and she had cut Peyton’s nails, she lifted Peyton off the table and Mommy laid down on the floor because she was starting to faint. She managed to get Daddy on the phone again, and he came down and took her to the medi-clinic place. (Side note: Mommy managed to call the pups’ Mom and left the door unlocked so she could come get them.) She was able to get up and get in the car and laid the seat back. Gross alert! She was mostly almost-fainted on the way there, even when she started to throw up. Since she was laying back and almost fainted, she also mostly missed the bag, and there was a big puddle in her lap. Now here is the My Daddy is a Hero part. He didn’t faint and he didn’t puke. Instead, he got her to the doctor’s. In the parking lot he took off his shirt, pulled an old pair of his jeans from the trunk, and helped her get changed into his clothes in the car so she could go into the doctor place – looking like a homeless person. Then he drove home and got dressed and brought Mommy clothes to change into. Don’t I have the bestest Daddy is the whole world? Oh yeah, Lucy said I should tell you Mommy was fine after that. She was feeling so much better that she said her usual No! when the doctor tried to give her prednisone, he, he. So anyhow, Slider and Peyton are coming back tomorrow to get groomed.

OK, OK, I know this is getting long and there’s no pictures, so you can stop reading if you want, but I have more to whisper to you. Two days later Mommy took us back to the dog park. She was loading the poop bag dispenser with plastic bags from home when something bit or stung the top of her hand. At first it hurt a lot and then redness started spreading all over her hand and wrist. She still stayed and let us play – which wasn’t as much fun ’cause there were hardly any other dogs there – and took another bennie when we got home. Whoops, Lucy said I should say benadryl so you don’t think Mommy is a drug addict or something like that. Anyhow, within a couple of hours, her hand and wrist were swollen up like a fat glove. You couldn’t even see any of the wrinkle in it. Shhh, don’t tell her I said that! She couldn’t even make a fist or hold onto stuff. The next day the redness had creeped up her arm, so she made the decision to go back to the same medi place. This time she accepted a shot of steroids in one hip and a shot of antie biotics in the other hip ’cause the doc said she had both inflammation and infection. It took until Friday for her hand to look normal again, and she is taking antie biotics and preds and probiotics and eating lots of yummy yogurt, even though nothing tastes good now. She’s not sleeping much but she is peeing a lot and hungry all the time. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t like the medicine. Although I am hungry all the time without any medicine.  Lucy just mentioned that this is turning into a novel, so I should say goodbye now.

Oh, and could you please just say something in the comments about me helping with the yard sale and not this part about Mommy ’cause I don’t want her to know I told you. ‘K?

Xena the Garage Selling Schnauzer Warrior Princess