Left at home, but not dis-CARDed.

Jellyby, our shih tzu, is 50% sweetheart, 25% spoiled princess, and 25% psycho.  When she's with people, she's all sunshine and lollipops: loving, gentle, and happy.  

But dog forbid she gets left at home by herself.  

Without company, she becomes completely unhinged.  She'll squawk like a dying chicken, attempt to claw her way out of whatever room she's in, basically have a total, Telemundo-style meltdown.  

We've tried a dog shrink ("a canine behaviorist"), expensive medications (liver-flavored Prozac, anyone?), natural remedies (Mr. HC's still giving me a hard time about my purchase of the "anxiety wrap"), kongs and other puzzle toys . . . all to no avail.  It's okay, you can laugh: I have reconciled myself to the fact that I am more Meg Swan than Cesar Milan.

Anyway, this self-flagellation is just context for why we ended up not taking Jellyby with us to our wedding.  I wanted so much for her to be "Canine of Honor" -- I even bought a darling pearl collar for her from a fancy schmancy pet store -- but because of her separation anxiety, we just couldn't figure out what we were going to do with her post-ceremony.  So Jellyby stayed behind in Boston with her godparents, our wonderful neighbors, who spoiled her silly while we were off at our Chewish wedding.

I was determined to include our little drama queen in our celebration, somehow.  So I had Moo business cards made with a dozen of our favorite Jellyby photos.

On the back of each card, we printed a note asking our guests to upload photos to our Shutterfly wedding website.

Unfortunately, I didn't do such a great job making sure they were distributed in a timely manner to our guests, so half of the cards never got handed out.  But it made me happy to know that Jellyby made an appearance, if only in 2-D form, at our wedding.  And it gave me an excuse to get Moo cards, which, you might remember, make my heart go pitter patter.

Will you be including your pets in your wedding or honoring them in absentia?