We’re afraid to wake him.

We had kind of a war here yesterday. I was practically supine with allergies but my wife decreed that my life was less important than Raebert’s and it was time to cut off his hair so he could breathe better than I can in the heat.

That’s not the war. I meekly surrendered to the inevitable and we trapped Raebert in the dog room with a set of electric horse clippers. Her job, as a lefty, was to cut off all his excess hair by pushing the clippers consistently in the wrong direction, and my job — as a righty on Zyklon-B or whatever that allergy med is which makes me into a Boris Karloff mummy — was to pin a terrified 110 pound deerhound in the corner and hold him still while his mommy made increasingly wild clipper passes at his privates and other body parts.

The good news. He never once flashed his famous teeth and threatened to tear our heads off. The bad news. When we’d finished, there was a compleat Mini-Raebert on the floor (shown above.)

I suggested sweeping him out into the dog yard. The missus scoffed at the idea and suggested we wait till he woke up and wandered out.

Does anybody out there need a deerhound the size of a cairn terrier? He looks a good deal spiffier than the deerhound we have left after the horse clipper adventure.

Had a picture but I’m not allowed to show it. Imagine a large beautiful dog suddenly beset by moths. Moths with tiny fingernail scissors. Lots of yelping and writhing and squirming later, a sorry dilapidated survivor emerges. That would be Raebert, hereafter designated as Maxi-Raebert to distinguish him from the tiny monster in the dog room.

We’re okay. Except it’s time for next anti-allergy Zyklon-B tablet. Are we good?