My mission, should I choose to accept it...

...is to be more like my dog.

Max doesn't like going to the vet. He's okay once we get there, but he kind of hates the car ride, as he wants to protect me from everything that he sees coming toward us. He gets overstimulated.

I took him to the vet the other day by mistake, thinking it was time for his checkup. He's not due until July. Since we were there, though, I asked them to please cut his nails. He doesn't mind having his nails clipped at home, but he tends to seek out and grab the nail clippers, then smuggle them outside in his copious cheek-pouches and bury them. So I'm short a pair of clippers right now. Note that "doesn't mind" for Max equals "doesn't try to rip the throat out of whoever's doing whatever". He bitches and shifts his feet, but he's not actually homocidal.

The mani-pedi took longer than usual. Max reappeared after about fifteen minutes with a tech at the other end of the leash, and I asked if there'd been a problem.

"Oh, no!" The tech was grinning. "He's a perfect gentleman. So sweet! (Aren't you a good boy, Max?) It's just that, after I finished his back paws and before I started on his front paws, he fell over on top of me and asked for belly-rubs, so I had to rub his belly and snuggle him."

This is my resolution: to behave more like Max in the next week. If something I normally dislike but endure happens to me, I promise to create the opportunity for belly-rubs.