Poor Little Pixie

Gosh I love that dog. Sadly, I barely think twice about her nowadays, since there is a much more loud and demanding little girl hanging out with us all the time. Except in the night when she awakens me by lumbering onto my pillow and collapsing heavily against my no-longer-sleeping head. Then I definitely think about her. Though at that point the thoughts are not so kindly.

Pixie loves the baby. One might say Pixie is obsessed with the baby. If the baby ever makes the slightest peep and Pixie is in another room, she races in like her tail is on fire and frantically licks all over the chubby face until it's comforted. If I take a moment before I race in with her, Pixie runs back and forth between us barking hysterically at my negligence, like Woman have you lost your mind the baby is CRYING!!!

Speaking of true negligence, I have stopped cutting Pixie's dew claws. Those are the little flappy alien toes attached by only a thread of skin that grow out of the middle of their leg. It's pretty weird that they even exist and seems like if she scratched them wrong they'd come right off, but alas they do not come off, and indeed actually sprout nails. At great effort on my part and great anxiety on her part, I have clipped them over the years, but I am extremely squeamish and she hates it so much and fights me so much and now that I have the baby all my reserves to do hard things are gone and the long story short is I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. And then I hadn't done it in so long I forgot about it. And then the other day she was maniacally licking one of the alien toes and I looked through all the hair and saw that the horrible little claw that has provided so much angst over the years had hit a new nasty low by growing so long it circled all the way around and was pushing into her skin and basically I am the worst Dog Mom ever.

SO I AM DONE. The dew claws are being removed entirely so I can sleep at night and not worry that when we get to heaven someday and Pixie can talk she'll turn to me and be like, Mom I cuddled your head on your pillow every single night and you let me be attacked by my dew claws?

Dave dropped the poor thing off and called to report that she went in the door with him very happy and waggy and excited and tried to socialize with another poor canine soul who also had no idea he was about to be abandoned there, and then when the leash was handed over to Scary Vet People and she was restrained from leaving with him, she realized what was going on and began shaking convulsively in terror, certain that she would not only never see us again but also become Scary Vet People's lunch.

My poor little baby. I feel sick thinking about her being so afraid. I am grateful Dave dropped her off, because doing so would have to go on the aforementioned list of Hard Things that I am just not up for yet.

We said a special prayer this morning for our little Pixie, who goes under both anesthesia and the knife sometime later today. She's getting her teeth cleaned and a special manicure too while they're at it. So in heaven I can be like, Yeah, I once let you be attacked by your dew claws, but at least I let you paint your toes.