Our Little Monkey Girl

One of the other “blessings” of very hot weather (notice I didn’t say ridiculously hot weather or infernally hot weather—see, I’m embracing the heat) is that my dog can’t stop shedding. She’s been shedding for months. Normally, a Lab sheds fur for a few weeks. But, Jezebel is going on two months plus. In fact, the boys’ new fun activity is pulling out hunks of fur while they watch reruns of Star Trek. This might be amusing to them, and the dog loves it, but, they forget what they’ve done by the end of the movie, and they bail leaving piles of black fur all over my bedroom floor. Of course, then there’s the time the piles of fur got wrapped up in Jez’s blanket along with clean laundry (it happened to be piled in a chair where some nameless male child wanted to sit), my pillow, etc. Needless to say, I had a conversation with the boys. They said, “Oops. Sorry.”

You’d think Jez would be completely naked by now. But she’s not, instead she’s still got a thick coat except on her tummy where pink skin is starting to show through. Ariel calls her “Monkey Girl” because her belly looks just like a monkey’s. The boys aren’t fond of Jez’s new nickname—you don’t call a big black Lab with a spiked collar, “Monkey Girl.” That’s like calling a Rottweiler “Tinkerbell.” It just doesn’t work unless you’re going for the irony factor.

Right now, Jez is out running with Calvin. She has to get in her morning run regarding of how hot it is. Afterwards, she comes home with her tongue hanging to the floor. I tease Cal that eventually either he or she will trip over it. Then, Jez flops down to the floor and closes her eyes—she’s done for the morning. Cal’s tried to run without her, thinking the heat and humidity is too much for her. But now, Jez won’t let him out of her sight. She won’t even eat her breakfast because she’s so anxious that he might go running without her. In fact, first thing in the morning, she whines at the bedroom door because she’s afraid Cal might sneak out the back door of our bedroom to go running without her.

Maybe it’s not the heat that making her lose her fur, maybe it’s anxiety making her go bald. Poor Little Monkey!