Pappy's Haircut and Four Leaf Clover Bonanza

Pappy has a "full" coat, which is a polite way of saying he has dog hair up the wazoo.

During winter, we let it grow. By the end of winter he looked like this.


Wednesday he got his first summer haircut.

Yes, we know Papillons aren't supposed to get cut so short. But Pappy's a country dog who likes to chase rodents through the sticker seeds and ticks. It will grow.

We have a talented new groomer, so hopefully he'll never look like that top picture again, even when his hair is winter length.


I was looking forward to taking him to doggy school last night so he could show off his new do to all his doggy friends. Instead, doggy school was cancelled due to a breakout of kennel cough.

Some ignorant dog owner brought her Great Dane to class Monday night with a cough. Kennel cough always spreads rapidly, but imagine the germs a Great Dane can cough into the air.

Tuesday night Pappy and Sunny both attended and trainer Gail's demo dog was home coughing. Since he was vaccinated for kennel cough (kennel cough is a generic term for any viral or bacterial infection that causes a dog to cough), that likely means this strain of kennel cough is not covered in the vaccine he received.

Thursday afternoon Gail called to cancel class and reported more Monday night dogs are coughing. She's disinfecting the doggy school and hopefully things will be back to normal next week.

I'm also hoping she puts up a big sign on the door saying, "If your dog is coughing, take it home NOW!" Some people need to be told.

My dogs are vaccinated for kennel cough. I'm hoping our vaccines work better than Gail's.

It was almost three years ago that I spotted two four leaf clovers staring up at me. The most excellent good luck followed shortly after.

The first clover resulted in a visit from Son John and DIL Anne from Idaho. The second clover resulted in the exciting news that they were going to have a baby the following spring.

Yesterday while walking the dogs I looked down and spotted these two good luck symbols. The one on the right has five leaves. Without knowing the meaning of five leaves, I'm going to assume that is super good luck. Although I can't imagine anything better than Granddaughter Sydney.


On the next dog walk, I looked down in an entire different place to find another four leaf clover of a different, larger species.

Now I'm really getting excited! What do you think this means?

At the very least I'm expecting my dogs to stay kennel cough free.

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Postscripts for anyone who is wondering:

I'm skipping Friday's Feast this week because I have other things to blog about for the next several posts and this week's questions didn't inspire me.

I'm not superstitious and the clover post was written in fun with a big smile. Good things that could be considered "luck" happen to me all the time, four leaf clover or not.

Still, that certainly was strange to find so many on the same day after all this time of not seeing any . . . .