How AI helped me make a gift for Pi’s new groomer

I have not been able to groom Pi well for many months. I have had trouble finding a groomer. Last week while I was out on my trike, almost home, a van drove past me with “Olympic Mobil Dog Grooming” printed on the side. I followed it. It stopped at one of our neighbors homes, Mrs. Applegate.

I knocked on the door. When one of Mrs. Applegate’s guests answered the door, I asked her if I could talk to Mrs. Applegate. In a moment I was let in. Mrs. Applegate greeted me warmly; we had not seen each other for several months.

After a brief conversation, I told her that I would like to talk to her dogs’ groomer.

I was introduced to Jen. She told me that she was not taking any new clients. She told me that there is quite a shortage of dog groomers, since covid.

I sighed, “Yes, I have discovered that. I have been having trouble finding a groomer for Pi,” I said. “I am not able to do it myself anymore. He is a full collie with lots of hair. My husband and I are living with a hair bomb.

“Did you say ‘collie’?” Jen asked me.

“Yes,” Mrs. Applegate spoke up, “She has a wonderful collie,” she said.

Jen’s face showed what she was thinking, “Oh, dear,” she said, you are twisting my rubber arm. “I love collies.”

“Well, Pi is a sweetheart,” Mrs. Applegate said.

Jen said, “When I was a little girl, I loved Lassie. I couldn’t have a dog. When I won a goldfish at a carnival booth, I named the goldfish, ‘Lassie.’ “

We all chuckled. Mrs. Applegate told Jen that she would love Pi.

“Would you like to meet him?” I asked. “I will go get him.”

“Yes, please do,” Jen said. Then she told us a story about something that had happened to her on a beach near here. She was surrounded by three dogs, at dusk, in the fog. The dogs were aggressive and trying to attack Jen’s dog. For a number of minutes the dogs circled her. She kept spinning her own dog around behind her back to protect it. Suddenly out of fog on the beach, a man and a dog appeared.

When she saw them she realized that the dog with the man was a collie! Two of dogs circling her took off when they saw the man and his dog. The collie headed for Jen. When the collie got to Jen, the other last dog left, too.

Jen had been rescued by a collie!

I went home to get Pi. She fell in love with him as everyone does!

Today she groomed him in her mobile dog grooming van. The grooming took her more than two hours. Jen, and her van, were covered with “Pi Crumbs”, as we call the fallout from the hair bomb we love, and live with.

Pi looks beautiful.

I wanted to give Jen a gift for being willing to take on Pi as a new client. Since I have discovered making images with AI, I created this picture with AI and laminated it for Jen.

She loved it! She laughed, hugged me and told me she was going to mount it in her van.

Lassie was a huge hero for the generation I grew up with. My mother brought a collie home for me, when I was seven years old. That is another story I will share with you soon.