The Dog Lady Blog

Despite my first three attempts, I finally got Desi's chow-like coat sheared all the way off. No drugs, no veterinarians, no brute force. After looping a leash around her neck, I put a muzzle on her mouth and on came my clippers. At first she was horrified that she couldn't "shoo" me away with strong "gestures", i.e., snapping and yelping as if I were truly hurting her. I kept her leash strap under my boot to hold her in place and began shaving her back. It took just over an hour to get her completely shaved down yet it only took her ten minutes to relax and let herself enjoy the fact that she was being cared for. Desi literally dozed as I worked on her. It's not the most elegant of hair cuts but it nonetheless has made her much more comfortable during this past week's humid weather. One of my warm weather rites, I know the dog in my care is prepared for the oppressive Ohio Valley atmosphere. I can keep an eye on their skin (which like teeth tells us a lot about their health) and invariably the dog's coat grows back even lovelier than ever. I meet a lot of people who say, "I heard that dogs needed their coats even in the summer to help protect their skin...". Sure, if they're living in the cold climate that they're genetically designed for. But for the furrier dogs (Akita, Pyrenees, Collies, Chows, et al), shave downs are simply put, humane. Some people laugh and make fun of their dog the first time they see them shaved. Not me. I always make sure to praise, praise, praise my recently shaved pups.

So I kept telling Desi how beautiful she looked as I groomed her. Once finished, I took her leash off and then the muzzle. She skulked away from me, trying to be mad but unable since she felt so fantastic. I kept regaling her with compliments. Within two minutes, Desi was in the tall grasses rolling on her now-bare-back, legs akimbo, moaning loudly with pleasure as she felt skin she never knew she had! Even the most reluctant of dogs, especially feral, who initially fight being groomed, end up in ecstasy after I finish with them.

As we went out for our evening walk, I saw an object in the drive about fifty yards from our camp. As I got closer, it looked like a toy that the kids had disemboweled. Once on it, though,
I saw that it was ta-da!: the muzzle I'd used on Desi earlier. As I started to reach down and pick it up, Desi comes sweeping past, grabbing the muzzle before I could and racing off ahead of me, throwing it in the air, delighted that she was now it's master. She crunched away on it's clasp, rendering it useless from this day on. Such a smart girl, Desi is.