Nail Clipping.....

.....You know how you see dogs with long toenails and you cringe? Yeah. I do, too.

Except there are dogs whose nails ended up growing to awful lengths here at the Hurst-Stukey Rest Home because sometimes, it's just not worth the problems that crop up when you try to get nice short nails.

Buddy is a good case in point. His nails had gotten kind of embarrassing, so I decided that while we had the nail clippers out for the Demon Chi (that would be what my husband's Chihuahua, Skeeter, morphs into when he sees the clippers come), we'd go whacking on everyone's nails...well, except for the deaf Deagle, Aggie. That takes much mental preparation in advance.

Everyone was kept out of the bedroom during Skeeter's toe amputation, but the screams and screeches alerted everyone to the dire happenings taken place on the other side of the door. Obviously, the humans were UP TO NO GOOD!!

Buddy was first in line. And guess what? He was really, really good. His eyes got real big and you could tell this ranked right up there with cherry flavored cough syrup, but he didn't move. No struggling. No whining. Stock still.

Until we put him down.

Then the coughing started. And it was never going to stop without chemical intervention, so I went straight to the Torbutrol. Within about 20 minutes, the drug had kicked in, the coughing was over and Buddy was stretched out in a state of utter bliss.

The problem isn't stress, which is sort of surprising. The problem was that Randall had to hold him for me and the way he has to be held is with his front end higher than his rear end. And there's an arm wrapping his rib cage. That body angle has cause problems for him in the past.

So Buddy's personal grooming routine will include toenail clipping months apart. If the nails get so long they give him trouble, I'll clip them. Otherwise, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll keep an eye out for the rear nails since he's got some rear assembly problems at times, but that's the only thing that will trigger more frequent trimmings.  It's just not worth it.