Five days to go

Today we paid a visit to the local PetSmart with a list of supplies from our Dogs for the Deaf trainer to acquire for my service dog Trooper, who arrives next Monday.

We came home with:

One medium plush dog bed.

Two stainless steel food and water bowls. (Not plastic, the trainer said.)

A six-pound bag of Purina Pro Plan small-breed chicken-and-rice dog food.

Three small bags of moist training treats.

Poo bags for the holidays?

Several rolls of plastic poo bags and a dispenser. (Plain grey. We decided against the festive decorated bags. Who comes up with such ideas?)

Two plush squeaky toys, one a moose and the other a teddy bear.

A small rubber Kong.

Three special tennis-like balls for small dogs.

A spray bottle of pee neutralizer just in case.

A collar ID tag we customized at a tag machine in the store.

It wasn't on the required list, but we also came away with an auto bucket seat protector. Early December can be very muddy.

At the hardware store we bought two plastic leftover dishes with lids and added a couple we already had. (Those will be used for the training treats.)

All told, the bill came to just over $225. We still have a meet-and-greet vet appointment to pay for, and that should bring the total to about $300, as Dogs for the Deaf said it would.

In the past we have lived with dogs and are quite familiar with their costs, so none of this was a surprise and we are not in the least complaining. The presumably rich lady who owns the Yorkie we saw being fluff-dried in the salon probably spent ten times that on her little darling.

All the same, it's nice that genuine service dogs are considered medical equipment for tax purposes.