Surpassing expectations

This is Ceilidh (Kay lee). She is a five-year-old Boston Terrier with ADHD. She has two speeds, full and off. When she's awake she wants to play. You cannot pet her, you cannot catch her, she cannot sit still. When she's asleep, she's completely out of it and you can cuddle her to your heart's content.

We've mentioned all this before, but I got a new lesson in the care and feeding of Ceilidh this week. For reasons too dull to enumerate, Fran and I switched days off this week. The complication was that Wednesday, Fran's usual day off, is Ceilidh's bath day. She has a medical quirk that requires weekly bathing with a special shampoo or all her hair falls out. No real health effects, but we really don't want a Boston Hairless running around the house.

When you have a dog with ADHD, schedules and routines keep her sane. She knows what to expect and how to behave when it happens. So, since Wednesday is Ceilidh's bath day, and I was off this Wednesday, I got to bathe her for the first time ever.

I was amazed. She's such a good girl! She stood steady in the tub while being rinsed, lathered and petted (the medication has to stay on her for 10 minutes). She was a trooper through the whole process, despite the change in the cast of characters. Her reward, as usual, was a vigorous game of fetch with her latex soccer ball, the true love of her life.