Day 490

We had a little emergency today. Dot has a terrible phobia of storms and when we were returning from our evening walk, she saw a couple of lightning bolts off in the distance and panicked. I could barely hold on to both dogs as she tugged on the leash to get up the hill to our house as fast as she could. When I was taking her leash off in the hallway, I noticed blood all over the floor. Dot had completely pulled out one of the nails in her front paw. She was still so upset about the approaching storm that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong. Luckily, our vet is nearby and it only took a few minutes to get her to the hospital so they could stop the bleeding. Dot now has a big bandage on her left foot and a toenail that may or may not grow back. Just about all Dot's injuries have come from being overly excited. Sometimes I wish she was a calmer dog, but she probably never will be. Excitability is just part of her personality.

The publisher of Dallas Dog Life gave me some sample copies of their new 2011 resource guide today. The ad that I ran in the magazine looks great, but I'll be amazed if it brings me any new business. I've run ads for my company in all sorts of magazines over the years, but none of them have really been game changers. Word of mouth still works best for me. I believe in advertising, but I'll be the first to to admit that a good recommendation from the right person can be worth more than five glossy magazine ads.

Slowly but surely, I'm getting all the details worked out for my upcoming trip to Houston. I've got a hotel now. I've got my airline reservations. I've just about decided what equipment I need to take. Now I just need to figure out what is actually going to be happening at the conference.

I know one thing that won't be happening tomorrow. Dot won't be going to training class. She needs to take things easy for a few days and give herself a chance to heal. I just hope we don't have any more rain this week.

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