Scott and I share our lives with Princess Nikki. Or is it Princess Nicky? Or Princess Nicki? Or… well, we never have, really settled on a spelling for her name – but that’s neither here nor there. For information how this little darlin’ came in to our lives, you can read about it here.
Perhaps I’ll just settle for Nikki. That spelling is as good as any.
Nikki loves the three of us. She dotes on me; she’ll bypass everyone else to greet me when we come home. I like that.
Nikki has her challenges in life. She’s a dear, sweet, timid little girl. Scott and I and Gary are her little family. But when anyone else comes in to our home, Nikki becomes very fearful. She barks ferociously, but prefers to do so from her hiding spot behind my legs! If Scott or I aren’t around to protect her, she will run and hide wherever she can, though preferably beneath our bed.
In addition to her fear, Nikki has some other little issues. Nikki does not like to be watched while she… does her business. We must turn our backs on her… but not too far… so that she can peacefully do her thing.
Nikki also does not like water, in any form. When it rains, it is very difficult for her to relax enough to… do her business. And, because of this, she really hates bath time. It used to be that we literally had to tranquilize her in order to bath her. We’ve overcome that, but bathtime is still a very stressful time for our little princess.
In my previous post, I told about the nearly 30 inches of snow we have on the ground (and are expecting another 7 in the next 72 hours.) Snow makes it very hard for our princess to go out to do her business. After the last big snow, it took her nearly 3 full days before she just could not contain herself longer. Fortunately, she found a relatively private location on our driveway on the other side of our car. When fresh snow arrived, we made sure to go and clear a path to the “dark side of the car” for her.
She has another issue. Her paws are ticklish. Because of this, she doesn’t like getting her nails trimmed. But yesterday, we finally had to do get her claws taken care of. We grind them with one of those “Peticure” devices. She doesn’t like this, either, but she does tolerate it.
Unfortunately we put it off so long (we could hear her anywhere in the house because of her clicking, clicking, clicking claws) that we discovered her dew claws had grown so long as to curl back on themselves. It even appeared that they had pierced in to her paw.
Nikki also is losing hair on her sides.
So, this morning, Nikki and I braved the –17 degree cold and visited another of her great fears… the veterinarian!
The visit was good and bad. The dewclaws weren’t as bad as we feared, easily trimmed, no surgery needed.
But, the hair loss has a rather nasty treatment. Our poor Princess Nikki must have her semi-annual bath tonight. And Thursday… and next Monday… and next Thursday… for a total of four weeks!
I’m not sure who dreads the baths more… Princess Nikki or her Daddy!
On The Road II 