The Gimp.

Poor Miss Ava has become my Wondergimp Pup within the last few days. Sunday we had a playdate with Jake, my friend Cati's lab mix, and then on Monday we had to get the dreaded rabies shot. On our playdate she managed to slash her front right pad, giving her a bit of a limp, and now she's favoring her back right leg after the rabies vax. Ugh. I hate vaccines. But that's another matter entirely.

Sunday with Cati and Jake was great though! Since we don't have a dog park anywhere, we use the local high school's football field. There's the football field, two softball fields, a tennis court, and a walking track. If we're lucky, we get there when no one is using the tennis court and we can let the dogs off their leashes to play. So far, yesterday has been the only time that someone else was in the tennis court so we just walked around the walking track until they left. I'm thinking that might be where she picked up the slash in her pad, but I'm not sure. If I think back on it, she limped a tad bit as we were walking around, after she pulled me through a patch of mud and I hit the ground with a lovely split. It was only two or three steps though, so I assumed she was trying to get the mud off her paws, just like I was trying to get the mud off my pants xD

After our laps around the field, we finally got into the tennis courts. Since the gate to it wasn't made to fit to the gateway very well, we've got a system down pretty well. Cati takes Jake's leash and ties the gate shut while I set out their water stuff where they hopefully won't tip it. "Hopefully" is the operative word in this situation, seeing that Ava usually flips the bowl and then lays in the puddle to cool off. She's such a resourceful little thing! Its amazing!

Her and Jake get along so great together though. I don't know what I'd do if we didn't have him and Cati to hang out with, honestly. Everyone else that I know has small dogs, with the exception of one friend and my grandparents. My friends are convinced that Ava is a monster dog who doesn't want to play with their small dogs, but would rather tear their heads off and nom on their brains. Its insane really because Ava has never once shown any aggression while playing with anyone, but she hasn't been allowed to play since she was about four months old. Cati and Jake are the only playdate that we can have regularly, and our only means of socialization except for random meetings at the vet, petstore, and the bigger park that's farther away. And, even better, Ava and Jake are about the same size and age so they're perfectly matched. Ava's a bit taller, but she's leggier and must more nimble. Jake's shorter and built more solidly, so he's more of a battering ram. So they can run themselves silly playing, collapse for a while to cool off, and then do it all again. Its awesome! I've never seen two dogs play so hard together. And all the while Cati and I can sit on the ground by the gate and watch and catch up since we hardly ever see each other. Yesterday I introduced her to Dogster on her iphone. I've gotta get one of those things - they're so spiffy! I wish I would have remembered my camera because I could have gotten some amazing pictures.

Monday was a different story though. First of all, I hate vaccines. They make me nervous and they piss me off because they're so overused and so few people know about the dangers associated with them. We've always been really lax with Snickers' vaccines and Ava will be too. She's due her yearly booster cocktail of poisons soon, but I have no idea if I'll be able to get titers or if I'll have to just skip it altogether. But anywhos! Ava's been due her rabies shot for about six months so I went ahead and got it yesterday. It went off without a hitch, which was a huge load off my mind because I was so paranoid about her going into anaphylactic shock since she seems to be a pretty sensitive pup. But she didn't and she even screamed at the vet while they trimmed her nails afterwards, so I knew it was all good. Then we hung around for a little bit to talk to the vet about her heat cycle and to make sure she didn't have any immediate reactions since I live so far away. After that I took her to the petstore to pick out a nice big braided bullystick for being good. Its like a little kid that has to go get shots and gets an icecream cone afterwards, isn't it? I also got a few nommy cans of food for our trip and a free bag of Taste of the Wild! Since we bought our 12th bag of TOTW a few weeks ago, our stampy card was full and I returned it before the card ran out on the 31st so viola! Free $45 bag of bison and venison filled nommies for Snick and Ava.

And then today, Ava was whining at 5am and woke me up, which is odd since I sleep like the dead and she usually has to stand on my head to wake me up. Then she starts favoring her back leg and won't even sit or lay on it. Right now she's wrestling with her deer antler while Snickers tries to steal it, but I'm going to make her a cold compress in a few minutes and then call the vet tomorrow if she's still limping. I might update this with pictures later, but right now, she's not even looking good enough for pictures. Poor baby.

Later this week we're trying out Belly scRubs, a sorta self-groom groomers that opened about an hour away from home. It sounds like a long drive, but when you live where I live, nothing is closer than forty-five minutes away. And they clean up the tubs when you're done! Ava's blowing her coat right now - for the first time, I might add - and there's a whole new level of fluff in our house in addition to Snickers' usual fluff deposits. Ava's getting ready for a roadtrip this weekend so I really want to make sure that she's defluffed as much as possible since its just rude to let her make someone else's house into a snowglobe.