All I wanted was for Puppy to look pretty!

[Erin]

I am so sorry

I just adore BdF's. They are awesome dogs and so beautiful. Smart and family oriented. Sadly and as a general rule (this means I know that there are exceptions to every rule), "giant" breeds tend to fail sooner than mid sized critters.

off topic and fairly depressing...

I knew that Bouvs dont normally last as long as smaller dogs, but judging from his parents lifespans (his dad was 14 when he died! his mom was 11) I kind of expected TinyMonsters to last a little longer than 9yrs.

There was a lot of stuff going on in our neighborhood at the time Tiny died. A neighbor's wife (who was insane) was leaving him, and she had been the bane of the neighborhood's existence with her two dogs that she allowed to run free. Her dogs (a basset and a golden) had attacked my aunt's pug INSIDE my aunt's house twice! This woman's dogs were doing their business all over the neighborhood (most of it in my aunts yard, who lived next door) and after repeatedly telling these people to clean up...several of our neighbors got together, cleaned up the messes and left it on the lady's driveway. She assumed it was my aunt and my parents (we live across the street from each other) and so she divided the pile into 2 piles and put one in my yard and one in my aunt's yard. My aunt kept finding cut up hotdogs on her back porch.

A few days after the poo incident, my dog was dead. I have no proof (the vet couldnt find anything) and there's a possibility that Tiny might have had a serious health problem for a long time, but I'm always going to have the suspicion that Tiny was killed by this woman. My aunt kept finding pieces of cut up hotdogs in her yard till that lady packed up and left her husband. (aunt's dog didnt like hotdogs) Hopefully that woman gave her dogs to someone who wont abuse them. (she used to tie them to frame of her garage door opener with chains, with not enough slack for them to lay down!)

Back on topic. Sometimes you have to pay a little more for good dog grooming services, and do a lot of searching. I've taken two of my dogs (Tiny and the poodle that came before him) to groomers that we thought were great, only to find out that they were not fit to touch a stuffed animal, much less a live dog. One groomer used to drug my poodle (without telling us) to groom him. Another groomer, at a kennel we took Tiny to, allowed her nephew to nearly beat Tiny to death during his time at the kennel. (that's another story)

You're right when you say that you have to really search for a groomer like you would for someone to cut your own hair. When I've found good groomers, I've been pretty good about sending business their way.