Sunday, July 1, 2012

Lucky's first visit to a groomer

Anthony and I realized this week that it was time to trim Lucky's paw nails.  Or maybe they're called claws.  Either way, when he walked on cement his paws were clicking loud enough that he could have passed for a tap dancing dog.

The decision was made to have a professional clip his paw nails and we decided to make it a worthwhile trip and have a groomer give him a bath at the same time.  The PetSmart grooming salon seemed fine so I called on Friday and made an appointment.

I was warned when I made the appointment by the person who answered the phone that I needed to have his vaccination records or they wouldn't take him.  It makes sense... grooming dogs isn't easy work and if one of the dogs the grooming crew at PetSmart works on decides to try and eat the groomer, they need to make sure it doesn't have rabies.

Lucky was his usual semi-well behaved and semi-restless self during the ten minute ride in Anthony's RAV-4.  He's pretty good in the car but he's a bit restless.  It doesn't help that it was about 105 degrees when we took him at about 11 a.m. and while the air conditioning in the SUV was on it was still relatively warm.

I took the folder full of medical history with me that the Humane Society gave us when he was adopted in May.  It turned out the shot records weren't in there.  Once it was determined they were missing, we had to drive over to the Humane Society office to get a copy and return to PetSmart.  When we got back, a family there was declined for a grooming because they didn't have any shot records for their puppy even though the man said they adopted it a few weeks ago from a Marine deploying to Afghanistan.  You may have done a nice thing buddy... but you still have to have those records.

They told us they'd need him about three hours.  I hope they got him a hooker and liquor to pass the time.  I don't know anything about grooming but apparently its a slower process than when I gave him a bath.  My experience giving him one took about ten minutes.  Maybe its because I don't work by the hour.

We went to Jimmy John's for lunch after we left and I got a nap in before picking him back up.  He's clean, shiny, nails clipped, and doesn't even smell like hookers or liquor.

The grooming folks at PetSmart were great.  On a side note, when I went to pick him up I brought a mat that you put dog dishes on back to the store.  I had purchased one a couple of weeks ago and discovered I had actually grabbed two accidentally and only paid for one.  I handed the extra one to one of the employees inside the store when I walked in and explained what happened.  Apparently that sort of thing doesn't occur often because the guy was shocked I brought it back.  And, when we went to the registers to pay for the grooming (and another new dog bed that supposedly is chew resistant) the manager of the store thanked me for bringing the bowl mat back.

Between returning the mat and the quest to find the owner of the lost wallet a couple of weeks ago I'm wondering if being honest is unusual.  I'm no saint, I just think its important to try and do the right thing.

Anthony drove Lucky and I to PetSmart.
It looks like he was saluting traffic but he was actually shielding his eyes from the sun.

Shoving eight inches of Jimmy John's roast beef into my pie hole.
None of the customers sitting nearby seemed impressed.