After spending a large part of the weekend in bed (and on the sofa) trying to get over a cold, I went over to Ryan and Jamie's house. It was the first chance I've had to see their golden retreiver, Mel, since he had surgery on his mouth to have a tumor removed (well, technically I'm not sure it was a tumor, but it was a growth, and it was malignant). Anyway, Mel has half of his head and one shoulder shaved, and he still has bruising and swelling on the right side of his face.
On the up side, however, he's got some pain control meds, and he's got even more love and attention than he got before (and he was doing pretty well for himself even before the surgery). One thing I noticed is that now that the fur is shaved off his face, you can really tell when Mel puts on one of his dog smiles, which he's prone to do when he's snuggled up with some friendly people (even though with all of that bruising on his face, you might think smiling would be the farthest thing from his mind).
Anyway, there's a lesson somewhere in that smiling, beat up dog. I'm not sure what that lesson is, but I'm convinced there's one there. I just found it a bit touching that despite being fairly roughed up, the kind touch of the people he cares about still makes Mel smile.