We found a Dog!

I'm so excited.  Yesterday we found our new dog!  She was tied up but didn't get aggressive or protective when we went over to touch her.  She let our 5 yr. old touch her too, so Katrina isn't afraid of her. 

We pick her up later this week.  So now I'm all flustered.  I need to get dog stuff, find a vet, find a groomer for the day we pick her up etc.  Fortunately it's not anxiety anxious.  Just the 'i don't know what to do first' excitement.  Maybe first i should sweep the kitchen floor so the dog doesn't think her main job will be to scrounge dropped popcorn.

I had looked for vets already.  There is one near our house who makes house calls.  That's when i 'remembered' that one thing i liked about going to the vet's before was LEAVING.  It was all clean when i went in and whatever they did to clean up after my visit was not my problem.  I DO have issues about chemicals and such.  This vet will do vaccinations etc., even small surgeries at my house which sounds ok cause then i don't have to be around sick animals but will he put his used syringe on my carpet?  Will he open the front door after using a syringe without washing his hands?  When he comes, will he have clean hands or will he have just finished disecting some other animal's poop and then come calling at my house?

He says all he needs is a table and a sink (laundry is ok.)  But my laundry sink is 'dirty' even tho it's been cleaned.  I wanted Bruce to get rid of it long ago and put a clean sink in, one that actually looks clean when it is cleaned.  One that won't leak rust on the floor.  Another expense. 

It would be a great ERP exposure, or it would make me go nuts.  Problem is I won't know which until I do it, but that will be too late.  Should i just play it safe and find a vet to go to?  It would be nice tho, to not have to pick up dog poop and put it in my car and bring it to the vet.  This way i could just leave it outside and the vet could pick it up on his way to the car.  Any suggestions?

Rainy day.  Great for wearing contaminated coats...Hey, maybe i should have just stood outside while it was pouring and gotten a free coat wash! ...    Oh well, too late now.

I wish I could say that I just put on my coat without remembering it was contaminated, walked out the door and into the van without a second thought.  But I can't.  I silently noted that the door handle 'might' now be needing a wash as well as the mail I touched.

Somewhere between my house and home depot everything got magically uncontaminated though. I think I helped it along the way by deliberately sticking my finger in my mouth.  I wouldn't do that if I REALLY believed there was something stuck to my coat.  Then I actually LOOKED closely at my purple coat.   Nope, nothing dirty on it and invisible contaminated dirt just doesn't count anymore.  So that meant that when I got home I  did not have to wash my hands (altho, I admit, I thought about it but knew that if I did that, I would be back where I started.)  I just grabbed some nuts and had a snack.


And the mail is clean, the door handle is clean and so is the van.   The coat ('can I wash it NOW?' wails ocd) is clean but there's a good chance that I will have a bit of a hesitation the next time I want to wear it.
And when I finally do get to wash it,  ( winter time ) there will be a quiet sight of relief from ocd that I obeyed at last.  And I will let it think so, even though I know that I always wash seasonal coats before they get put away.

Thanks, Sunny & Tina for giving me a little push in the right direction this week!

Dog Update

We looked at the dogs.  One of them sort of nipped Katrina while she tried to feed it and she got scared.  She likes animals but gets very timid around them.  The dogs seemed nice, but not overly affectionate or interested in us.  We thot it over and after talking to other people Bruce got cold feet and said no. :( 

Now my problem is whether to wear the coat that i wore to touch the dogs with.  Everyone else is wearing their coats like nothing was wrong, but even after doing a thot record about it at my weekly group meeting ( where i realized that the dogs didn't smell, so it must be ok) i''m still leary about actually putting the coat back on.  So far it's been fairly warm every time I've got out this week so I've been able to get away with just putting on a sweat shirt.  But that is just avoidance, and i'm good at that! 

It feels like there will be a big irreversable 'change' if I actually wear the coat.  Like every place i go with it on will be contaminated.  Shakes head.  I should just DO IT instead of agonizing what could happen if i do it. 

Or if I can't stand the idea, just wash the thing.  Either way, I should just make a decision and stick with it.  ... Why are decisions like this harder to make than ones that start with: ' will you marry me?'