Day 30/365 The Magic Nap...Or Blinded By the Light

I promised Chewy that his mom could be the star of today's blog -she's had a traumatic day, with some scary news. Her full name is Millicent MacGregor Muncy, or Miss Millie, and she is an 11-year-old salt and pepper mini schnauzer, three time natural mom, one time adoptive mom, and all-time queen of neurotic dogs.

Millie has issues with opening doors, closing doors, going through doors, vaccuum cleaners (running or not), telephones (ringing or not), empty boxes (that may, or may not fall on her), loud voices (that may or may not be directed at her ) being picked up TOO high (TOO high is a purely discretionary designation and may change at any time), and especially, above all else, clippers, nail trimmers, scissors, or being groomed in any fashion, at any time.

When faced with any of the above, she will work herself into a tizzy, and sometimes hyperventilate while dancing on her tiptoes and chortling.

For this reason, she must be taken to the local groomer at our vet. This involves explaining to her the night before what the next day is bringing, explaining it again to her the next morning while putting her leash on, explaining it yet again in the car on the way to the groomer, and then leaving her there, standing shell-shocked with no idea why she's there and why we appear to be
abandoning her.

Millie's groomer is a wonderful, patient, animal lover-extraordinaire saint named Caitlyn. Both Millie and our family adore her, if for no other reason than she returns Millie to us clean and wiggly and so happy she is just beside herself, complete with stylish bandanna.

Caitlyn accomplishes this by employing The Magic Nap. In other words, Millie goes into the groomer dreading all manner of terrible things. But then, thanks to the miracles of modern chemistry, she gets completely stoned and spends her afternoon partying in a psychotropic haze chasing uncatchable cats, chewing giant squeaky toys, and sucking down a never-ending food bowl full of cheese and bacon.

When she awakens, she is devastatingly beautiful. It is Magic. She has no idea how it works, and regards it as truly an amazing miracle.

Yes, Millie is addicted to The Magic Nap.

Today was Magic Nap Day, and we managed to drop her off this morning without any hyperventilating on her part, still wearing her shaggy summer coat and hair all down over her eyes (which truthfully is pretty normal for a non-show schnauzer).

Late this afternoon we picked her up, all sleek and pretty, looking somewhat like a gray and pink sausage on four toothpicks, but with her sweet little Millie face smiling out at us. She chortled with happiness all the way home.

Unfortunately being able to see her eyes meant we could see that her left eye is badly clouded up. While her right eye is clear and the pupil contracts and expands in the light, her left eye does not. Now we know Millie is blind, or nearly blind in that eye, which probably accounts for her running into the gate, or missing the step sometimes. This sort of blindness is a congenital weakness in schnauzers, but we didn't expect it so early (miniature schnauzers can easily live to 17-18 years of age).

We have sat and talked with her and explained the silver lining in this situation: She can now parlay her chortling talents into a whole new career: she already has a little stool, so now all she needs is a small guitar and some shades. She's quite excited, and is now lying under my desk writing blues tunes in braille.

So this is how Miss Millie sees the world now. Of course our little pup has a comfy home with us no matter what - we will widen the ramp for coming in, so she won't miss her step as easily, and the other dogs will help guide her. The pups have a fenced play yard, so she's in no danger of getting lost, and at any rate, she's never needed her eyes to locate her food bowl.

Life goes on for all of us, and it's rarely fair, even for little pups that have done nothing but bring smiles to those around her.

Love and Kisseys from Chewy's mom, Miss Millie MacGregor Muncy