Mr. Loomis' New 'Do

Meet Mr. Loomis. He's small and cute and old and can be a bit cranky at times. That's okay, he's earned the right to be that way, having lived a long life. Doesn't he look cute, cuddly, and innocent?

But we've had personal experience with a dog groomer who would challenge this assessment.

Not too long ago, we took Mr. Loomis into a new, untried groomer for a haircut, which he needs about once a month. The day slowly crawled by as I wondered just how long it takes to give such a tiny guy a haircut.

After lunch, we got the answer. The army of groomers couldn't finish the job because from the minute we dropped Mr. Loomis off, he fought and bit them. A team of three couldn't even get a muzzle on him.

Wait a minute, I thought. Surely, they have the wrong dog!

Nope! That's our Mr. Loomis. Looking at him, you wouldn't think he could scare off three adult "professionals," but that's exactly what he did. How? (It reminded me of stories back in the day of how Herve Villichaize used to beat his wife, and I always wondered, couldn't she have just outrun him? But I digress...)

So, heads held low, we went to go retrieve our dog of destruction, our preying pet, our tiny terror, our ferocious fur-ball. And the nightmarish stories continued. They claimed a ton of them tried, but couldn't get close enough to finish the job.

So...he came out looking kinda funny, like a Dr. Seuss nightmarish creature.

When I told my brother how Mr. Loomis had reacted, his response was, "Good boy!" At first I didn't agree with his proclamation, but upon investigating poor Mr. Loo, we discovered that somehow he'd had his dew claw torn off! I would've been pissed, too. A call to the vet reassured us that it happened all the time, and more than likely, he caught it in the cage. No wonder the groomers hadn't charged us anything.

A few weeks later, we managed to book Mr. Loo into another groomer (these places are crazy booked). All day long, we waited with baited breath for "The Call," but it didn't come. Finally, the phone rang and they said, "he's ready." Nervous, I flew down there, expecting to find a ton of shredded groomer corpses strewn about the building. But they said he was perfectly fine. In fact, other than dropping personal decorations in the building before and after, he'd been a perfect gentleman (okay, maybe that's not very "gentlemanly").

So Mr. Loo's new 'do looked too good to be true! His dew claw regrew! And somewhere there're three grooming "professionals" having PTSD about the lil' dog that conquered. Happy endings all around!

While the dog days of Summer keep on panting, why not check into beautiful Peculiar County for a stay? Be sure and check out the local hotel, where Mittens--a ghost dog--may just keep you up at night barking. C'mon, it adds local color!