Torchsong Studio

Our sweet pup, Rudy, is having one heck of a shedding season. This is the first time it has been an issue. He was only a little guy last year at this time. Now, he's a big boy. He's been through a winter and a hot summer and his fur is coming out in huge bunches!

Here's the culprit. Doesn't he look like a perfect little gentleman? What an innocent face, huh?

He's normally a very mild mannered fellow, but what a whirling, snarling dervish he becomes when the brush comes out! For some reason, he really hates it.

We've been attempting to brush him as often as possible even though it means tying an old handkerchief around his "snoot" which seems to calm him so that he lies peacefully while giving off quiet little growls.

It's pretty obvious he holds no grudge because, afterward, he's full of fun and ready to play - oh, and expecting a treat!

What do you suppose this is? Is it a cotton boll gone unpicked? No. Have a herd of sheep passed by recently? No.

This is an echinacea seed head that had fallen across Rudy's pathway. It seems it caught on a clump of his fur and it just pulled right out...

On another note, you can see in this picture how dry it is, too... We've reached the typical brown ground stage of summer when much of the grass has become crunchy underfoot.

Usually our summer drought is ended when the tail end of a hurricane sweeps up our way and soaks the thirsty earth. Maybe the seemingly drunken path of Ophelia will lurch it's way up here and end it for us this year.