That Rug Really Does Not Tie the Room Together

We can haz traction?

There are three days left to help Lebowski out of his close second-place position in the quest to replace the abused floors in the Brandywine farmhouse.

Vote here for Lebowski!

The Dude got off to a commanding start in the voting, but late last week was passed by the sullen Australian shepherd who is pictured on a shiny new-looking floor.

Boo.

Perhaps it's just that the circles I run in are more, you know, dog people?

Lebowski would like to point out that he is an apprentice dog, and as such, deserves the votes of dog people.

Floors so awful we have to stack the animals

Not just an apprentice dog, but an apprentice English shepherd. One of the more difficult sorts of dogs for a Dude born a cat to pull off. He's been working on the Family Yoga Pose.

Don't judge.

At the emergency vet on Thursday I saw a poodle/Yorkie cross that I actually thought was a cat at first. She was a very nice little dog, of mature years, and not feeling too well. She sat so quietly in the chair next to her owner's chair, and had such dignity, that I mistook her for one of the clinic cats. Easy for her. Lebowski has a more challenging task before him.


Wait, what?

The emergency vet?

What has Sophia done this time?

Nope, not Sophie. Not this time. Though it's a very Sophie sort of thing to happen.

You shoulda seen the other guy.

Rosie was helping me to teach young Charlie to swim. Mission accomplished with the help of a retriever bumper and some social modeling/competitive spirit. But Rosie knows that she can get a head start on both Charlie and Cole by launching herself with great force from a dock, while the others prefer the less flamboyant shore entry.

The other guy. Seemingly unaffected.

I'm mindful of the danger to toes and toenails posed by the gaps in the decking on docks.

Never occurred to me that an agile little dog could slip just as she launched and get a hock entrapped under the  rope cleat. And then hang there. Screaming.

I was certain her hock was broken. Things moved that are not supposed to move. I didn't diddle around after discovering that. Three wet dogs into the car and off to the emergency vet, as it was approximately four minutes after my real vet closed for the day. Since the emergency vet was Doogie Howser's prom date*, since the advice that seemed so counterintuitive when she gave it was also very wrong according to Doctor Google, since Rosie was completely tripoding and clearly in terror that something would touch her foot, and since (we later discovered) the radiograph I paid for did not cover the entire relevant section of dog, we followed up with a visit to our real vet, who corrected these deficiencies and fashioned a wondrous splint that appears to include in its engineered innards both a yogurt cup and a system of flying buttresses.

The good news is that it isn't fractured. The bad news is that it isn't fractured. Hock sprains with this kind of dramatic mechanism of injury can be a nasty business. Lots of complicated ligaments down there. Putting them right can get ugly as well as uncertain.

We will see whether conservative treatment -- rest and splinting -- gets Rosie back into fighting form. Meanwhile, we are bereft of our best and most versatile SAR dog, and hoping for no hairy deployments.

Oh, and the vet bills so far have et up what I'd scraped aside to replace the worst floor, the stinking old carpet in my office, with the cheapest vinyl planking I could get. A visitation of The Budget Gremlin.

So now we really, really need Lebowski to win us some damn floor. I'm more determined than before to get rid of the slippery laminate in the living room, too. I feel it lurking there, ready to throw a search dog into a skid and wreck a knee or ten.

And I need all who wish well to Lebowski and his adopted transpecial pack to vote for him, tell your friends to vote for him, bribe your co-workers to vote for him, harangue your Twitter followers and Facebook friends and blog readers and Yahoo groups and whatever happens on Instagram and Pinterest and MySpace and LiveJournal.

Apparently the mechanism for voting limits you to one vote per device (phone or computer or tablet). Which has been a bummer for the families we know who all use one computer.

The link: http://goo.gl/VLeKan

Maybe you'll win floors yourself. Someone will. Two thousand dollars can get you some pretty nice hardwood.

Lumber Liquidators Cutest Pet, Ugliest Floor Contest. Lebowski. Certainly cuter than the sullen Aussie. The floors on which he romps certainly uglier than the shiny new one on which the Aussie is being sullen.**

The Dude will thank you.

Voting ends Thursday, July 31. Not much time left.

I shouldna have started measuring it before the contest was over. That jinxed it

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*Yay! Baby-talk for both animal and owner! We love that shit. Especially from someone who is younger than some of the stuff in the back of my fridge.

** I freely admit that Lucy the puppy with the dork ears is hella-cute, and the floor on which she is lying is heinous. But Lucy is out of the running. She's the Ralph Nader of cute pets on ugly floors. Do not be distracted by the puppy with the dork ears. Lebowski is your candidate!