truly man's best friend

I know this shouldn't surprise me, but as I was driving along on the PCH the other day, I passed a pet grooming store and noticed a sign on their window that read "Canine CPR Certified". I had to repeat that back to myself to see if I understood correctly. CPR for dogs? All I could envision was mouth to mouth resuscitation on a dog's snout and it wasn't a pretty picture. I can't even KISS a dog let alone do mouth to mouth. Yikes.

Don't get me wrong, dogs are wonderful creatures. I grew up with dogs, but they were outside pets in our household. A dog was treated like an animal. They ate crunchy, hard dog food and lived in the backyard. At one point, my sister and I insisted they should eat the wet stuff so my parents gave in for a bit. We even got them to buy Science Diet for Angus, our overweight German Shepard, but my parents went back to the generic Sam's Club bulk mix, and I can't blame them. We also rarely bathed our dogs. On occasion they got rinse downs in the outside shower or took dips in the pool, but that didn't happen often. As for brushing them, I think we did that seasonally. And teeth brushing? Our dogs always had dog breath.

Since I grew up with outside pets that were treated like animals, things like canine CPR blow my mind. I know I would have done it when I was young and in love with our dogs, and I would do it now if Win had a dog that he cherished, but it still kind of grosses me out. I can't promise canine CPR if you ever need me to watch your dog, but I can give you a good lead.