02BBC: Yoshi Tales I

Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 948

I got an Instagram Stories ad today about a pet grooming establishment that offers food options so you can eat while waiting for your pet. The photo depicted a cafe-style scene with the patrons facing the glass partition revealing the pet grooming area. I immediately showed this to Tobie and joked about how Yoshi never would have been okay with us being visible while he was being groomed as he'd demand to be with us.

It has been a number of years since Yoshi died, but his memory is as vivid as ever. I'm not sure when we'll ever feel like having a dog again given the mark he made on our life. But that has me thinking there are a lot of little Yoshi stories that I've never really documented anywhere and I may forget them in time. 

So let's tell a few stories, shall we?

We have a LOT of stories of Yoshi at the groomers because he'd do such funny things. And the groomers would generally have no complaints about him apart from the fact that he'd get very eager to run to us the moment he'd spot us through the glass. More than once, I've seen him jump off the groomer's table to go to us if we arrived too early for his pick-up.

We always suspected that Yoshi wasn't a big fan of other dogs. He wouldn't necessarily bark at them or something. He'd just be irritated by them. When we'd drop him off at the groomers and they put him in the cage where he'd wait, he'd have this very miserable-looking expression on his face. And if we waited too long, he'd start barking as if he was demanding to be let out and to be back with us, so we'd have to leave pretty quickly.

One time we caught him right after his bath but before his grooming, so he was still damp. He was irritated by his paws being wet and he kept lifting his paws off the metal bars of the cage as if to avoid maintaining contact with his wet paws. We'd see similar behavior when his paws would get wet while walking, and it would irk him to no end.

One time they had to shave Yoshi down because they were trying to deal with a rather nasty fungus or something. When we got him back, he was practically a naked molerat (if you get my drift). For a moment Tobie wondered if they had given us the correct dog as he looked so different from his normal. But yes, it was Yoshi. Of course it was.

Last bit for tonight - I always love how whichever of his paws is pressed against you while you carry him, he'd automatically tuck it in while his other paw would just flop around. Time and time again I've tested switching from carrying him with my right arm or my left and the inner paw would automatically come up. Totally adorable. I always found this terribly cute.