<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>Ok, so I've been a basset mom for a year and a half now. WHEN will I ever get good at this?? Even passable?? Someone please tell me there's a chance... cause ... well .... let me tell you what happened.</DIV>
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<DIV>My Snoopy has been a PILL. For several days. CHEWING madly at his feet and legs and everywhere. Snarking at his brother Cyrus, sister LuLu, anyone and everyone on our walks .... even ME. Now he doesn't bite, you never feel any teeth but he's just been NASTY. So, yesterday I had enough. I decided heck ... he doesn't bite ... I'm going over every inch of him and try to find out if he's injured or has a bad gut or what could possibly be causing my sweet smooshy boy to be so rude all the time. So, I started with the belly. Nothing. The legs, the feet. Nothing. The body. Nothing. Could it be his eyes I wondered? I heard they get grumpy about sore eyes so I moved to his head and I went to move his ear and I realized it was crunchy. And when I touched the crunchy part he started scratching with the hind leg uncontrollably. I checked the other ear and
it was crunchy too. Snoopy has EXTREMELY long ears and he does need his ears fluffed regularly but geez ... come on ... I wash his ears out and bathe him weekly (on Fridays) and I usually fluff those ears once or twice in between but somehow I didn't this week and he must have gotten them wet in the morning grass and then dragged them through some dirt in the garden and added in some pumpkin from a meal and it just all crusted up on the outside of his ears and itched him like crazy and he couldn't get relief. Long story short I got a dog towel and wet it with warm water and rubbed the furry part of his ear and he just purrrrrrrr'ed. It took several ear massages on both sides to get all the crud out. I then got a clean dog towl and fluffed them dry.</DIV>
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<DIV>No more cranky Snoopy. In fact he went and found Cyrus and lay down back to back and snuggled him as soon as I got done. And then he was adorable last night on his walk and everyone wanted to pet him.</DIV>
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<DIV>I think I might just be hopeless.</DIV>
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<DIV>More later from the clueless momPerson with Snoopy (she might never learn) and Cyrus (she does try) and LuLu (Snoopy is incredibly high maintenance, it was just a little ear crud, geez)</DIV></div></body></html>