shopping is hard

Badger has brand new everything. But he also wrecks everything. Kodi has 8 year old everything, but never wrecks anything (with the rare exception of course). So I was looking at Kodi's old collar, where it has rusted from exposure to sea water so that his ID tags are just barely hanging on to corroded metal, and the worn edges and the stains and faded colour. Then I looked at his leash, also worn and faded, now with chew marks where Badger has grabbed on to it multiple times and I made a decision. I was going to buy Kodi a brand new collar.

Now, everyone ought to know by now, that when it comes to outfitting my dogs I don't do fancy patterns. I also don't have my dogs on martingales, and I don't do plastic buckles. They wear flat 5/8s nylon with metal buckles. Kodi wears green, and Badger wears red. End of story, no questions asked. That is just the way it is. That's how I like it. Don't argue with me about this.

This should, in theory, make buying a collar for my dog simple. Green is a common and well loved colour. 5/8 inch is a pretty standard leash and collar width. So I packed up the dogs and took Kodi to the store while Badger waited in the car. They had collars, and they had leashes, they even had 5/8 collars and leashes with metal buckles. They had lime green, and they had blue green, but they did not have green. Alright, so off I went all the way across town to the other petstore that was open on a sunday and they didn't even have lime green, or blue green! There was no even remotely green collar in sight.

Now, Monika, you're going to tell me, there are more than two petstores in town that are open on Sunday. Yes, you are right, there are. However the other two also sell puppies from puppy mills, something I am openly morally opposed to. The idea of shopping in such a store makes me frown more than not being able to find a green collar.

Then someone says, "Order one online" and I resist the urge to rant about how if I could buy a collar in my dog's absence and be gauranteed of it's fit and colour, then I wouldn't have brought my dog to the store with me at all. I hate taking my dogs in to petstores because that is like taking a small child to a toy store where they aren't allowed to touch anything and doesnt have a public washroom. No matter how solid Kodi's obedience is, taking him to a store full of bones, food, treats, toys, and the smell of other dogs' piss results in me doing nothing but yanking on his leash and demanding that he smarten up and sit still and not whine while I try to read the ingredients on puppy food. If I could just go buy him a collar, then I wouldn't have to go through that! But I do, because I can't, I tried, it doesn't work. A collar labeled 5/8 inches turns out to be something like 6/8 or 7/8 and instead of 16 inches long its either way too freaking big or too tight because I don't believe in the one finger rule. It's my whole hand or bust when it comes to a dog that only wears a collar to carry ID and occasionally clip a leash to. But it also shouldn't fall off his head when he bends down to eat. Everytime I buy a collar in Kodi's absence it is not right in some way, which is why he still wears a collar that he's been wearing since he was 6 months old. At least I can manage to pick out the right colour, but if I ordered online, even that would be a toss up, what looks right on my screen falls to that stupid disclaimer of 'colour on screen may not be exact colour of product' and I'd probably just open the package after waiting 6-8 weeks for delivery to find either a lime green collar, or a blue green collar, that is either too big, too small, or too wide because no collar company knows what 5 freaking 8ths actually is!

Maybe I'm too picky, I don't know, but I'm not buying the fancy dog beds, nice dishes (half the time they eat out of my dishes) great toys, or anything like that, so shouldn't I be allowed to be just a little picky about well proportioned, properly sized and nice classic coloured collars?

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