From Rags to Riches

Everyone blogs about their kids....first day's of school, new words they're learning, cute videos of them trying new foods, playing, etc. In our house our "kid" happens to walk on 4 legs, bark, & is covered in fur. While he has some similarities to human kids--he loves attention, loves to play outside and in the dirt, and enjoys making messes as he eats and drinks---he sure has became a big part of our family. (And besides, give me a break...it's been at least one or two posts since I did one that was entirely about Charlie).

Charlie went for his first fur-cut today, and as you can see it made a dramatic difference. He went from homeless & slobbish to stylish and refined, all within a matter of hours (of course we're talking looks/outward appearance only here). When we went to pick him up he was sitting in a kennel by the register and Brad actually had to ask, after initial shock "Is that OUR dog?" Yup...didn't even recognize him.

I was really worried for the groomer, as Charlie is a puppy (and an Airedale puppy at that) and he loves to nibble and can be kind of crazy. To our surprise, when we went to pick him up the girl told us that we must have a "broken" Airedale (of course this panicked us a little...broken almost always means "bad") because compared to all the other Airedales she has groomed--some of whom had actually brought her to tears in the process--he was one of the most well behaved she's seen, and she continued ranting and raving about how great he was. So, as you can imagine, we were immensely relieved.

Sadly, after bringing him home we found that he can now catch food in his mouth when thrown to him....he's never been able to do that until now and we always just thought he was kind of...uh... "special" because he would turn his head & back away at the last second leaving the food to hit him in the face. Turns out the poor thing couldn't see! And who would've known there were such large dark eyes hiding under all that unruly fur. Gotta love him.


P.S Don't you love his head tilt in the "after" photo? He is famous for this and does it constantly as you talk to him, especially when he picks up on words he knows the meanings of.