Suppermassive Black Hole

Poor Chester.

Poor neglected, under appreciated, left to rot in a kennel while we party it up in Dallas, Chester.

Last week I took Chester to get groomed who, by the way loves it so much, he has to be sedated. Later that evening Elijah mentioned that the bump on Chester's left side seemed to have grown. I figured it was simply more pronounced due to his newly shorn skin and proceeded to file that concern under things that I'll worry about when both kids are in school and I finally have time to poop in peace. (That's right, I said poop.)

Fast forward to Sunday evening when a sulking Chester is finally freed from his captors, or as I put it, when we pay $30 for someone else to listen to him bark all weekend. Elijah is even more concerned about this growth and while the "before children Chester mommy" would have rushed him to the nearest emergency vet, the new "totally exhausted mom of two REAL kids" wanted to try the more cost effective, wait and see approach.

Monday morning comes with a POP. That's right, Chester's growth-like cyst of nastiness popped overnight leaving remnants on Asher's sheets. Yick. Elijah cleaned it up and dug out the remaining whatever the hell it was while I held Chester, averting my eyes. It was an extreme form of gross. I had never seen anything like it. I was so disgusted.

I'll take poop over puss any day.

Eat For Two

Chester is starting to get fat; I'm mean he is really tubbing out.

I hadn't even noticed, as Chester has pretty much become the neglected child, it was Elijah who pointed it out. We had to board Chester when we spent the weekend house hunting in Austin and they charged us based on his weight. Well, Chester clocked in at about 24 pounds. Seemed small enough to me, but Elijah was quick to point out that, with Chester's normal weight being 20 pounds, he had gained about 20% of his body weight this year. And since I'm so bad at math, he had to add that that's like me gaining a little over 25 pounds. (And now you all, if you're better at math than I am, know how much I weigh!)

I could not understand how he was getting so fat. We haven't switched his food or how we've been feeding him. Everything seems basically the same as it's always been. We have always free fed Chester so he only eats his food when he's hungry.

I was musing about our fat little Westie the other day after dinner and the answer suddenly came to me...

Mad World

On Tuesday, I dropped Chester off at the groomer's for his summer haircut. He came home smelling of powder, with a black and orange flamed bandana around his neck.

He is still not speaking to me.