Tiffy-morphosis

It's been a while since I've reported on Tiffy, which is a gross oversight because moving to an arid climate has a direct impact on her.

Just as Travel Orders described, having a dog can greatly influence how we bid. For example, Jamaica won't accept any non-British born dogs. Several other countries have quarantining rules, and we've heard horror stories about dogs that go into quarantine, but never come back out alive.

But those two criteria were the only ones we really considered as far as Tiffy was concerned. (And to be truthful, we had a contingency plan in the event we were going to a quarantining country; give her away, likely to a family member.) If Tiffy could have voiced her opinion on bidding, she wouldn't have let us bid on any post any further south than we already live.

And this serves as my excuse to post pictures of Tiffy.



Look at all that fur. This is a dog that definitely was not intended to live in the desert. Yet that is where she is moving. These pictures actually illustrate Tiffy at her furriest because this year we forwent her usual winter grooming. (Funny story: Last summer, when she got her shave, we came home with a urinary tract infection, which we attributed to an error by the groomers...after shaving her, they bathed her, and to avoid details, let's just say some stray hairs went where they shouldn't. Do you know how to diagnosis a urinary tract infection? Pee samples. Do you know how to obtain a dog's pee sample? You follow her with a ladle and catch some midstream and pour it into a tupperware container and rush it to the lab. That was a fun day.) Determined not to give these groomers another chance at hurting her again, we missed her winter grooming while looking for a new groomer.

Those pictures are also the last time Tiffy will be furry for a couple of years. She already struggles in the summer when we hit the 80s and 90s. That will be the wintertime weather in Hermosillo.

So now Tiffy will live the next few years (at least) like this:



Yeah, she looks kind of ridiculous. But she isn't one of those dogs whose aware of her appearance. She actually seems to have an extra bounce in her step being relieved of a few pounds of fur.

The trick is going to be keeping her fur this short. Let's hope we can find a good groomer in Hermosillo for her, because we'll be making lots of visits.