The Writing Groomer

Being an Adult Sucks Sometimes

2015-12-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I COULDN'T WAIT to grow up. I hated being a kid. Didn't have many friends until high school - and let's face it, we basically thought we were adults in high school anyway.

Sitting at the "kid's table" at holidays and special functions was like torture. I much preferred adult conversation to child's play.

I tried to get a work permit and get a job at 15, but nobody would hire me, so I went looking for a job as soon as I turned 16. I worked for two terrible weeks at a fast food restaurant, then quit and worked at a grocery store for the next couple of years, and apart from when I was attending college, when I worked during breaks anyway, I haven't been without a job for more than a few weeks at a time since.

My mom took me to get my learner's permit the day I was old enough - 15 and 3 months. I took and passed driver's ed and got my driver's license on my 16th birthday.

In less than a year of working part-time, plus working nearly full time in the summer, I saved $2000 so I could buy my first car. My aunt and uncle matched that money because they wanted me to have something more reliable than what $2000 could buy.

When I was 18, I started getting credit card offers in the mail. I decided I should get one before going to college. You know, "for emergencies."

Little did I realize that I would come to define an "emergency" as wanting Domino's Pizza on a Friday night after burning through the money I'd saved over the summer.

And so began my money troubles.

...

Cut to now. I'm 33. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder six or seven years ago, and it's reasonably well under control at the moment. I'm pretty sure I have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) but stimulants, the usual treatment, made my heart race, and I might be allergic to the non-stimulant treatment. Oh well.

I am currently in a group therapy for emotional regulation called DBT - Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Through DBT, I'm fully realizing just how much my subconscious is ruled by a 5-year-old who like to throw temper tantrums.

I've never been very good at forcing myself to do stuff I "should do." That is why I weigh nearly 250 pounds and I'm a slob with chronic financial troubles. Anytime I think, "I should eat better/exercise/clean my apartment/manage my money better," the 5-year-old kicks in and screams, "NO!!! I don't wanna!" And most of the time, like the wuss I am, I let her win.

(Side note: this is one reason I do not want to have kids. I can't even control the child that lives inside my brain; I would never be able to control a real, live child.)

So here I sit. 33 and single. My savings account is empty. My checking account is $850 in the red until I get paid on Friday. My only credit card is maxed out, unusable, and behind on payments. I took my car to get emissions tested on Monday - and they were unable to test it because it "wouldn't stay on the dynometer." My car already needs a new clutch and lots of other work done to it, which I am trying to wait to fix until I get my tax refund in a couple of months, but now I need to get SOMETHING, I don't even know what, fixed before I can even COMPLETE the emissions test, much less pass it, so that I can renew my license plates before the end of the month. I almost had the opportunity to move in with a friend and save nearly $700 a month on rent an utilities, but that fell through. Now I'm finally emotionally ready for a roommate - but stuck in a lease until November.

And what do I want more than anything?

To go back to the simple days of being a kid, where my parents took care of most of my basic necessities and I didn't have to worry about anything more stressful than homework. I feel like I wasted my childhood away just waiting for an adult life that sucks.

To any kids, teenagers, or young adults who might read this - enjoy your youth. Even if adulthood doesn't get WORSE as you get older - it certainly gets more complicated. Enjoy the simplicity of youth.

And stay away from credit cards as much as possible.

NaNoWriMo

2015-12-02T07:49:00.001-07:00

This year, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time. NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to start writing a new novel on November 1 and write 50,000 words (the length of a short novel) by the end of the month.

I completed the rough draft of my first novel, a romance novel, at 67,000 words and 230 double-spaced pages in 22 days.

A little something about myself: I'm not very good at finishing what I start. I've started half a dozen novels before, usually during manic episodes (I'm bipolar), but this is the first time I've actually finished one. It feels amazing!

Right now, I am heeding Stephen King's advice and letting my rough draft sit for a while before I go back and do my rewrite, so that I can approach it with fresh eyes.

In the meantime, I am trying to write another novel, but without the excitement of NaNoWriMo spurring me on, it's slow going.

Anyway, after I rewrite, fix up, and edit my first novel, I would like to get it published. It looks like self-publishing of some sort may be the best way to go. Even if I do strictly an e-book, I've heard a good editor is well worth the money to help you structure your novel in the most reader-friendly way possible.

The problem is, that costs money, money which I don't have. So I'm thinking that I might do a kickstarter fund. I guess right now I'm testing the waters to see if any of my friends, family, and other blog readers might be interested in helping me fund my first self-published book? If I do a kickstarter, I will have a summary and/or excerpt of my novel so people know what they are funding.

In any case, I will probably start blogging regularly again to increase my social media presence in advance of potentially self-publishing my first novel.

I welcome comments, though I do moderate them to weed out some of the spam.

Tips For Grooming Difficult Dogs

2015-08-03T11:00:00.003-06:00

When I was a new groomer, I HATED grooming difficult dogs. The wiggling frustrated me, the biting scared me, and I didn't yet have the tools to handle dogs that, for whatever reason, don't like to be groomed. It wasn't until I started my current job 4 years ago that I had the time and space to acquire the tools to handle the difficult dogs, and now, after 11 years of grooming, I actually seek out senior and difficult dogs. My favorite part of my job is figuring out how to make sure each dog has the best experience possible for their grooming.

It is my belief that in order to be truly comfortable grooming those difficult dogs, you need 3 things: time, patience, and experience. I can't help you find time or patience, but I can give you some tools that I believe can aid your experience level.

The biggest tip I can give you is to constantly pay attention to the dog's body language. With the possible exception of senile dogs, dogs don't bite for no reason. Usually they are biting out of fear or pain or even the memory of pain caused by a previous groomer, which I guess qualifies as fear. Once you figure out what a dog's trigger is, they are so much easier to handle.

Here are a few examples of dogs that had been labeled as difficult or aggressive that I have been able to work with and, in some cases, "rehabilitate."

My greatest success story is probably a Great Pyrenees that I've been grooming for over 3 years. The first time I met him, his owner told me that he had been muzzled by 4 previous groomers. One groomer had muzzled him for his feet, one for his butt, one for both, and one for the entire groom. That's interesting - usually dogs bite for the same thing every time they get groomed. What's going on?

The first time I groomed him, he was trying to climb out of the tub during the bath, which was a little frustrating but not a crisis because he was tethered. Since I wasn't sure how he would do for the blow dryer, I left him in the tub. As soon as I got near him with the dryer, he started doing what I call bite-barking. He was barking and snapping his jaws shut, but he wasn't aiming any bites at me; I was able to see that he was afraid of the dryer but didn't want to hurt me.

When I wash and dry a large hairy dog, I like to put in my ear buds with hearing protectors over them and listen to my favorite peppy music. Usually this is just to avoid boredom, but during loud and/or difficult dogs, it helps me to stay calm and tune out distractions. With my music going, I was able to stay calm and I dried him the best I could from an arm's length away. We don't have kennel dryers, so I just did the best I could with the velocity dryer.

Luckily I was able to coax the big guy up onto a table once he was as dry as I could get him. The first thing I do to (almost) every dog when they get on the table is nails. If you'll remember, feet is one thing he needed to be muzzled for previously, so I was cautious, but I wanted to give him a chance.

He was a little bit fussy for his feet and nails, but he never once tried to bite. Interesting.

On to shaving his butt sanitary area. When I went to pick up his tail and move it out of my way, he sat and turned in order to yank his tail out of my hands. Fascinating. Maybe I'll leave that for last and have somebody hold him while I shave that area. Brushing went well, even for his butt - as long as I didn't touch his tail. Brushing his tail was a fight but I managed it OK. I had somebody hold him up so I could shave his butt and he tried to get away but never snapped once.

All done and no need for a muzzle. Why didn't he snap at me when he had apparently snapped at 4 previous groomers? I believe it was a combination of things. Partly, I was able to stay calm and not get flustered by his bite-barking. Dogs are very sensitive to your energy; any groomer who's had usually good dogs act up when they are having a bad day can attest to that. By keeping my energy calm, he was able to stay calm.

Another thing that worked in my favor was not pushing him too far past his comfort zone. I uphold humanity over vanity above all and even extend that to: sometimes settling for "good enough" is exactly the right thing to do. I could have gotten that dog's head dry, but I would have lost any amount of trust he had developed in me, he would've gotten more stressed than necessary, and he would've been far crankier for the rest of the groom. I like to think long term - it was more important for me to earn his trust than to get his head dry.

These days, he doesn't bite-bark for the dryer any more. He'll even rest his head on my shoulder while I dry him, though he's starting to get spoiled and insist I scratch behind his ears any time I have a free hand while drying him. I can get his head most of the way dry. He even steps willingly into the tub and onto the table. He still doesn't like having his tail handled, so I handle it as little as possible. With a 120-pound dog, I think it's more important for him to like and trust me than to make sure his tail is brushed to fluffy perfection.

Now, I know some groomers will argue with my methods. Some groomers think it's better to force a dog through the things they don't like: "They have to learn to get used to it." I think in certain situations that method is warranted, particularly when dealing with puppies. But I don't think that's a one size fits all solution. After all, long term, if you force an already difficult dog through the things they don't like, they're just going to become more and more difficult and stressed. Stress can kill, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

Another dog I have been working with is a Silky that had become so aggressive for his face that previous groomers were hardly able to trim it at all. He had a lot of pin mats in his overgrown beard, so I am assuming that he had a naturally sensitive face and groomers had been somewhat roughly brushing pin mats out of his face for most of his life, so he naturally associated the brush or anything else coming near his face with pain. Naturally, the solution for this particular dog is to stop brushing mats out of his face.

That first groom, even trying to cut the mats out of his face as gently as possible was difficult because he was afraid of ANYTHING near his face. After the first two or three times I groomed him, I gained his trust and he learned that I wasn't going to hurt him. I recently groomed him for about the sixth time, and while he kept his eyes squeezed shut and occasionally tried to keep his face away from me, he didn't even give me any "Elvis lips," much less snap at me.

I keep his face trimmed very short to prevent any mats and I use my thinning shears to cut out any mats that I do find, and he's actually become quite good for grooming. I still keep my guard up because he is still clearly fearful, but as time goes on and he trusts me more and more, he will relax even farther and become quite a pleasure to groom.

Many dogs are only difficult for one thing, such as nails. When this is the case, I try to save that one thing for last so that they aren't still upset over the one thing they hate while you are doing things they might otherwise cooperate for. Also, in dogs that hate having their nails done, I don't go for perfection. The longer you spend trying to get the nails as short as possible, the more stress you are going to cause the dog and the more they are going to hate it. Conversely, if you do the nails as fast as possible, they may learn to calm down a little bit because the calmer they are, the faster you can go, and the sooner the torture is over.

I have been grooming a Westie for nearly 4 years who used to be so difficult for her nails that it required 2 groomers wearing aprons and standing in the bathing room, then cleaning up the mess she had made before washing her (for any non-groomers reading this unsure what mess she was making, she would pee and/or poop every single time while trying to bite anything that got near her). Over the years, she has struggled less and less and less, to the point where I can now do her nails by myself at the end of the groom with her head well-tethered, and if she snaps at all, it is a half-hearted attempt meant to show her frustration rather than aiming to injure me. I attribute her improvement in large part to the fact that I don't spend forever trying to get her nails perfect, I just do one clip per nail and move on.

Sometimes dogs who were fine for grooming when they were younger develop issues in their older age. I go into much more detail on grooming senior dogs in this previous post. Some issues they might develop include "laziness" due to arthritis or hip dysplasia, fear biting when they start losing their sight, and dryer senility.

The key to grooming difficult dogs, in my opinion, is always trying to figure out WHY they are being difficult and how to best work around the problem. Remember: humanity over vanity, and sometimes good enough is perfect.

I hope I managed to help you at least a little bit. I'm sure I have more tips rolling around inside my skull but this post is already quite long. Feel free to comment with your own tips for grooming difficult dogs!

Grooming Senior Dogs

2015-07-29T17:02:00.002-06:00

In my opinion, groomers should not approach grooming senior dogs the same way that they approach grooming younger dogs. Senior dogs need special consideration; without it, they can become stressed out or even aggressive. Stress CAN kill a dog, and few people have the patience to groom aggressive dogs, so let's talk about how we can provide the best possible experience for each senior dog.

For starters, many older dogs, especially the larger breeds, develop arthritis, hip dysplasia, or other medical conditions that can cause pain. Many times, the owners may not even be aware of the changes in their beloved pet, as dogs are accustomed to hiding their pain.

Would you force your arthritic grandparents to stand for an hour straight without a single opportunity to sit? Would you yell at them if they tried to sit or if the effort of standing caused them to shake? No, you wouldn't (or at least I hope not). So why do so many groomers do this to the senior dogs that they groom? I wouldn't use a butt strap to force my grandmother to stand for an hour, so I refuse to do it to a dog.

Sure, it takes a little creativity to groom a dog when they are sitting instead of standing, but there are plenty of things you can do while the dog is sitting, such as their face and front feet. I know, I know, you have to do the whole body and feet before you can do the head (or however your specific routine goes; you get the point). Your senior dogs will benefit greatly from a little flexibility on your part. Humanity over vanity should be the groomer's credo, and that should apply to letting older dogs sit a little and not just to shaving matted dogs. So give that dog a break from time to time. They will appreciate you for it and so will their owners.

I work at a place where we groom every dog straight through; we don't do any kennel drying. Personally, I prefer this method over block scheduling, but that's a discussion for another day.

Some dogs, as they get older, start to have problems with the velocity (HV) dryer. I've heard some groomers refer to it as a "dryer seizure;" I call it a "senior senile moment." Whatever you've heard it called, you know exactly what I'm talking about: You're drying a dog and they're doing fine...until they aren't. Something switches inside their brain and they start freaking out, barking, peeing, pooping...PANICKING. The best thing to do is immediately turn off the dryer, calm down the dog, clean up the mess, and if you choose to continue drying them, do it with the nozzle off.

After a senior dog I groom does this a couple of grooms in a row, I decide it is time to stop drying them. It just isn't worth the stress put on the dog. When I talk to the owners, I explain it like this: Imagine you're talking to your grandmother (yes, more grandparents) who has Alzheimer's. You're having a perfectly normal conversation until suddenly she looks baffled and says, "I'm sorry, who are you again?" And then you point a leaf blower at her.

Since cage drying isn't an option where I work, I give my customers the option of bathing the dog themselves the day before their grooming and letting them air dry or else I will do the haircut on the dirty dog, then do the bath after the grooming and send the dog home damp. Yes, dirty hair doesn't cut very well and is difficult on your blades and shears, and yes, a dog washed at home may be curly and stringy instead of fluffy...but isn't that better than a dog who gets so stressed from the dryer that they die in your care? I could never live with myself if that happened to me, and most of my customers are so happy that I am concerned with their dog's well-being that they don't care that I can no longer get the haircut as nice as I used to.

Another thing to be aware of is that a dog's behavior may change as they start to lose their sight or hearing or acquire new pain. They may suddenly become snappy when they never used to be. This is not a time for force; you are not teaching a puppy that biting is not OK. Listen to what the dog is saying.

Why did they snap at you?

Maybe you moved their leg in a way that wouldn't bother a normal dog but is aggravating their hip dysplasia. Maybe they are developing cataracts and you approached their face too quickly. Maybe they are losing certain frequencies of hearing and now your clippers sound different around their head. Listen to what they are saying, and work around it the best you can, so that both of you can have a safe experience with the grooming process.

In the end, senior dogs still need to get groomed, but we can all ensure that they have the best possible experience and don't go home sore or overly stressed out.

Do you have more senior dog grooming tips? Leave a comment!

The Not-So-Triumphant Return of The Writing Groomer

2015-07-29T16:13:00.000-06:00

Well, Hello again!

It's been more than 2 years since my last blog post. A variety of factors have kept me away, but a renewed sense of passion and urgency about writing has brought me back. I have made myself a goal of writing at least 500 words per day, every day for one month. Now, that may not all be in the form of blog posts. It could be journaling or working on one of my novels. But in some form or another, I do intend to get back in the habit of writing every single day.

I've become a little shy about posting pics of dogs I've groomed until I get permission from the owners, so my blog may be a little text-heavy for a while. So what might I post about without the cute dog pics?

I am planning on writing in detail about my techniques for grooming senior and difficult-to-groom dogs. I might write about my daily life. I might write about current events. This blog is certain to expand beyond just grooming, so I hope you're up for the ride!

These are my dogs, Hailey and Dillin.

Don't Cry (A Poem)

2013-06-21T21:13:00.000-06:00

"Don't cry, don't cry,"

she said,

"I can't help you

when you cry.

Don't cry, don't cry,

we'll talk when

your eyes are dry."

So I

don't cry, don't cry,

I eat away

my pain.

Don't cry, don't cry,

I don't want to

feel the pain.

Don't cry, don't cry,

what a bunch of crap.

I want to cry,

I need to cry,

no more

emotions kept

under wrap.

Groomfest Part 2

2013-06-13T21:25:00.000-06:00

Okay, sorry it's been a few days, but I'm finally ready to give you Part 2 of Groomfest, which I attended last weekend. If you haven't read Part 1 yet, you can find it here.

The first lecture Saturday morning was Speed Grooming. I learned a few new tips and got a few product recommendations. Some of the tips I don't really feel comfortable with, such as this one: "clean, clipped, cute. cute face, short feet, short butt = happy cust". Those are my notes, verbatim. The lecturer was saying that as long as the face, feet, and butt look good, you can basically half-ass the body and the customers won't care. I know time is money, but I'm not really interested in sacrificing quality just to be faster and groom more dogs. I know this technique works - I used to work with a groomer who had a TON of requests - but her customers loved her personality, not her grooming. As an example, a Standard Poodle she had groomed was waiting to be picked up. I had to walk over and cut off an inch-long piece of hair from its clean face. Groomers who follow this blog: What is your opinion about/experience with the Clipper Vac? I've heard mixed reviews.

The next seminar was Grooming the Rough Coated Brussels Griffon. As I was in my seat between seminars, I saw somebody wave at me and come across the room. It was a groomer I used to work with and am still Facebook friends with, though we are not close and I hadn't seen her in person for a couple of years. Let's call her M. Here's where my day started to get interesting. As M and I are sitting next to each other and getting caught up, she tells me that B, who we used to work with but I had a bit of a falling out with, is competing and afterward she would join us in the seminar. I don't have especially negative feelings toward B, but I have no idea how she feels about me. So the thought of seeing her made me nervous.

Anyway, the seminar, sadly, turned out to be a bit of a joke. The lady who was supposed to be teaching did not seem to be overly familiar with the breed; it sounded like she had memorized the breed profile out of a book the evening before. So she was awkwardly trying to talk about this breed and how to groom it (the dog was brought by somebody else, a retired show dog, he wasn't her dog). So she starts pulling out tools to hand strip him. She was quite tentative at first. I don't know if that is due to her unfamiliarity with the breed or if it had been a long time since she had hand stripped a dog. It really got fun when she pulled out a tool that some bigwig had recommended to her several years ago, but she had never tried it. As soon as she did, she exclaimed, "OHHH MYYYYYY. Wow. This is nice. This is incredible." Seriously? We're supposed to be learning from you, and yet here you are asking the owner of the dog to make sure you are stripping him properly? That does not inspire much confidence.

At some point B showed up. She had won the terrier competition by hand stripping a (I think) Norwich Terrier. We greeted each other with a half-nod acknowledgement and she sat on the other side of M and talked to her for a while. Eventually we decided to ditch the rest of the seminar and head down the hall to the actual trade show. There, J found us, another former coworker with whom I have had no contact for 2 years. We did the same half-nod, then started perusing the booths. I had tried to save up some money before GroomFest, but my dumb butt managed to show up broke, so walking around looking at stuff I couldn't buy had no appeal for me. I headed out to lunch alone and ate in my car so that my phone could charge.

After lunch, I made no special effort to find M, B, and J, but they didn't make any extra effort to find me, either. The next seminar was Tips & Tricks of the Trade with Marlene Romani. Any groomer will recognize the name Romani - it's maybe not quite as iconic as Ferrari, but I'd say pretty close. Can you imagine how a mechanic would feel taking lessons from somebody with the last name of Ferrari? That's how I felt during this seminar. I did learn quite a few things from Marlene, and some of her tips were similar to or the same as Mitzi's tips, so I can be confident that they are good tips. One that was particularly interesting to me was to put liquid baby powder on shaved faces and sanitary areas to prevent clipper burn. Has anybody tried this?

The last lecture of the day was an American Cocker Spaniel demo. I was hoping to see in person how beveled feet were done, but the lecturer ran out of time. I did finally learn how and why to do the small poof on the front of their heads - it's to fill in that divot in their skull to give the appearance of a "dome-shaped" head. That was worth learning. Also, she showed how you can thin out the coat with a Coat King to blend the skirt better without needing to use thinning shears (as much).

After all of this, I was exhausted. I am used to being on my feet all day at work, so sitting for 2 days straight sapped all of my energy out of me. I went home and took a nap, intending to go dancing afterward, but I decided to stay home and go to bed at a decent time.

I had already decided to skip the first two lectures of Sunday morning. The first was Kerry Blue Pet Trim Demo. I've only ever seen 3 Kerries in 9 years. Of those 3, 1 was groomed regularly by a coworker of mine, 1 I just did a bath on with no haircut, and 1 I groomed twice before leaving my last job. Whenever I happen to see another Kerry, I am perfectly capable of following the directions in The Book. I'm too tired to look it up right now, but I'm pretty sure other groomers know what I am talking about. The other seminar was Are You Lost in a Sea of Shears & Blenders. After 9 years, the answer is no. I know what I like and I know what works best for what. If there was something interesting before this seminar, I probably would have stayed through this one, but I decided I would rather have the morning off.

After what would have been lunch, the first seminar was Funky to Fabulous, which turned out to be really interesting. It was about finding a dog's faults and minimizing those faults through grooming. I had already figured out that I could make bent legs appear straight, but it never occurred to me that you can make long dogs look shorter and legs in any which direction or angle look straight. I've already tried a couple of the techniques that I could remember off the top of my head (this is the first time I have referenced any of my notes since taking them) and I was pleased with the results.

The next seminar was Happy Dog/Happy Groomer, which sounded interesting but I just absolutely could not sit in those hotel hairs for another minute; I had to leave.

All in all, I had fun and learned a lot in those 3 days last weekend. I'm looking forward to attending next year (hopefully this time with money), and I highly recommend attending a trade show if you have the chance.

GroomFest Part 1

2013-06-10T19:57:00.000-06:00

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend my first trade show, GroomFest. I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and I wanted to share some of that with you all.

The entire first day of the 3-day event was a seminar on creative grooming. This is something that I have just started doing with my own dogs, and I am definitely interested in learning more and potentially offering these services to clients. So I was definitely looking forward to this seminar.

I had no idea what to expect from the whole weekend. That first day, I brought with me a water bottle, snacks, 2 notebooks, and an entire package of brand new pens. I had no idea if there would be any restaurants near the hotel, so I had no idea what I was doing for lunch. I had no idea how many people to expect. I was curious/nervous about running into people I have worked with in the past that I no longer have contact with. I had no idea what to expect at all out of the entire weekend. So I was excited about this entire event, but I also had A LOT of anxiety going into it.

Friday morning, I got there plenty early and found my way to a smallish ballroom with tables set up in rows with pads of paper, pens, glasses, coasters, and pitchers of ice water. Oh, and Jolly Ranchers, which I don't like but thought was a neat touch. This hotel, the Crowne Plaza, is out near the airport and has its own small convention center. They clearly deal with events like this a lot. In fact there was another event going on this same weekend - more on that later.

Anyway, I picked a seat in the front row near the middle. I wanted to see as clearly as possible since I have practically no experience with creative grooming. I pulled out my water bottle even though there was water provided (if I had to carry it around all day, I would rather it be empty than full), a notebook, and two pens. When the seats next to me were taken, I introduced myself and we made some small talk, but this would be my first indication at how clique-ish the weekend would be. Most people either came with friends or coworkers, met up with people they see every year at this event, or made fast friends with people immediately, leaving my shy self feeling excluded. But that's okay, I came to learn, not to make friends.

Angela Kumpe was the teacher of the creative grooming seminar. This is out of the brochure for GroomFest: " Angela Kumpe is internationally known for her creative styling work and was named Creative Groomer of The Year 2011 and 2012 by the Barkleigh Honors Awards. Angela is also VP of The Creative Groomers Association (CGA)."

Needless to say, she was well-qualified to lead this seminar.

Anyway, the morning was predominantly a PowerPoint demonstration. I took LOTS of notes. I will need to re-write them into something that makes sense, because they are kind of a mess right now. (PS - Sorry I can't figure out how to rotate it. I still don't have a great way to upload pics from my phone to my computer, so I'm having to do everything in a backhand way.)

I also need to pick through all my notes and make a list of what to buy and where.

After the PowerPoint presentation and before the live demos, it was time for lunch. Luckily there were several restaurants nearby so I didn't have to have chips and Starburst for lunch. That day I went through the KFC drive through so I could charge my phone in my car while I ate. The girl who handed me my food saw my name tag and asked if there was a convention going on today. When I replied Yes, her face said, Great, the lunch rush is going to be TERRIBLE. Although really, I think there were around 50-75 women in the creative grooming seminar, and spread between all the nearby restaurants, each rush shouldn't be terrible. But what do I know.

I digress.

Anyway, I learned a lot during the PowerPoint presentation, but there's just no substitute for seeing all of these techniques done on real dogs. The first thing Angela demonstrated was how to do leopard spots. With the right tools, it was actually surprisingly quick and easy. By the way, that's not her in the picture, it's one of her assistants.

If I recall correctly, without checking my notes, I think those spots were done with a semi-permanent dye that she gets from Sally's beauty supply. I kind of thought you had to be a hairstylist with some sort of license to shop at Sally's? I hope I'm wrong, because I don't know where else I would find these colors.

After demonstrating some of the Pet-toos and glitter on one of her human assistants, Angela brought out this cute Chinese Crested to demonstrate several different techniques. The blue streak in his mane is from a product she created called, I think, Touch of Color. It is designed specifically for just streaks. The neat thing about this color is that you MUST heat set it for the color to hold. So the streak you see, she heat set with a flat iron. What you can't see is the spot she put on his neck with the same dye. Since it wasn't heat set, it washed right out. Talk about fool-proof color!

She also did this koi fish. She had printed out several different images on paper, and after asking our opinions on which image we thought she should do, she created a stencil out of sticky foam, which she stuck right on him and airbrushed around the edges. If I remember correctly, the black, orange, and yellow were all done with the airbrush, and the green and blue were done with blow pens. I don't know that I am that artistic, but she swears that anybody can do it. Once you outline the design with a stencil, free-handing the other stuff isn't as difficult as you might think. I guess we'll have to wait and see about that...

Oh, look, here's an earlier picture with that blue spot in his hair that I had mentioned.This was before he got bathed.

And here is another airbrushed stencil that she did. I think it came out great, what do you think? Angela is the one with her back to the camera.

So I learned a lot during the day-long creative grooming seminar. It got done around 5, and there was a Career Start grooming competition at 7 that I wanted to see. With rush hour traffic both ways, it would not have been practical for me to drive home and come back, so my mom was kind enough to take my dogs out for me. I went to a restaurant a few miles away that has amazing calzones that I visit a couple of times a year.

The Career Start competition was really interesting. There were 4 women with less than 1 year of experience. They all had to provide their own dog and table. Coincidentally, there were 2 Westies and 2 Toy Poodles. As I watched everybody, I got a pretty good sense of who had relatively more experience and relatively less experience than the others. The poor girl directly in front of me was working on a Poodle, and I could tell that she was EXTREMELY nervous. It took her forever just to do the clean feet. They only had an hour and a half, and she spent easily 30-40 minutes just on the feet. She was clearly one of the less-experienced groomers.

The lady next to her was much older than the other girls. The way she groomed, I suspect she may have been a hairdresser before becoming a groomer. She looked reasonably confident and moved along at a decent pace. She finished much before everybody else and, not wanting to stand around doing nothing, used that extra 10-15 minutes thinning shearing the dog. He already looked good, but that extra time to blend everything may have made the difference.

Over on the other side of the stage, the other girl grooming a Westie looked incredibly nervous. I overheard some women in the seats behind me saying that they heard an opening in this competition hadn't been filled yet, and could they please try to find somebody to fill that hole. This girl was a bather in this lady's shop, so she decided to show her how to groom a Westie and that girl groomed every Westie to come in the shop that week. So if I heard correctly, she only had one week of experience doing anything aside from bathing. No wonder she was so nervous!

Furthest away from me was the girl grooming the other Poodle. Once time started, she got off to a blazing fast start. I'm not sure if this led to a quality issue. The dog looked pretty good from my vantage point, but it was quite a ways away from me.

After all was said and done, the girl in front of me with the Poodle got 4th place (out of 4). The older woman with the Westie won 1st place. The other Westie, with potentially the least-experienced groomer, got 2nd place. The other Poodle came in 3rd.

It was really quite interesting for me to watch other groomers groom and how they are being taught to groom. It was interesting to see how their quality looked after less than a year of experience. And it certainly made me wonder how well I would be able to groom under such pressure and with several dozen strangers in the audience. Here is the winner with the judge to her left and the sponsor of the event to her right.

OK, this is already way too long, so I'll write about Saturday and Sunday at GroomFest in a Part 2. Look for it soon!

My Head Forgot to Tell My Heart...

2013-06-02T00:43:00.002-06:00

CAUTION: Extremely Long!

I had such a strange evening tonight, and I am so full of thoughts and emotions that I can't quite sort them out. Guess I've decided to let you all deep inside my brain. In order for that to work, I need to fill you in on some back story.

9 years ago, I moved back in with my parents after dropping out of college and trying to live on my own in the real world and maxing out my credit card. Shortly afterwards, I decided I needed a hobby that could get me out of the house. I had always loved to dance but I had limited exposure to it for most of my life. I was listening to country music at the time (more about my changing music tastes another time) and I found out that a local bar does a lot of dance lessons for both partner and line dancing. I started going regularly and I was hooked. For about five years, off and on, I was going out dancing as many as 2-3 nights a week. I was still overweight (around 180-190 pounds) but my legs were super toned and I built up enough endurance to dance for half an hour straight before needing to stop for water. Oh, I forgot to mention that several months after I first started going, I met my first real boyfriend there, L. That whole relationship, if that's what you could even call it, was sort of messed up. I don't remember everything, but one of the breaking points came when I wanted to get hold of him but he didn't have a phone, for whatever reason, so I had to wait for him to call me from a pay phone. That was the first of several one-sided relationships I would have. We were only really together for a month or two, but at 21 or 22 and having my first real relationship, it was pretty significant. I should also mention, for an unrelated story, my Purple Shirt Guy, who taught me at least half of what I know about country partner dancing. I guess the short version is that he taught me a lot, I enjoyed dancing with him, I was fond of him (though he is my parents' age), and I spent more time dancing with him than anybody else. Most guys I would get a song or two, but it is with Purple Shirt Guy that I built up my endurance enough to dance for half an hour, nonstop. Anyway, all good things must come to an end, and about 4 years ago, I ended a relationship, changed jobs, and changed hours. Having to be at work at 7:30 5 days a week did not lead me to want to stay out late. So I gave up dancing for a while. This past Januaryish, I decided to get back into it again. I started with a line dance class, where I met my female friend, K. It was her first time at that bar ever, and it was my first time back in several years. Through female K, I met male K2. I was intrigued by him at first, a young single guy taking dance lessons, but I was much too shy to talk to him, especially with other acquaintances hanging around. Then one night, female K had to leave early, and our other acquaintances weren't there, so I decided to go out of my way to talk to K2. He turned out to be really interesting once I got him to open up. We had danced several times before that evening, and I had helped him out a little bit, which he

crazy dogs trying to bark at people at 11:40 pm. ugh

Anyway, K2 always went out of his way to introduce me to his acquaintances as "The one who helped me find the beat." That felt pretty cool. OK, back to the night in question. Both Ks were taking an advanced two-step class together, and I told K2 he could throw the move they had learned that night at me to see if I knew it. I didn't so he taught me and was impressed that I picked it up so quickly. Then he randomly asked me if I wanted to play pool. Uh, sure, why not? Turns out he's sort of a pool shark, so I said, in my sarcastic attempt at flirting, "Oh, I see, you wanted to show off that you're good at something other than dancing, right?" He just tilted his head to the side and shrugged his shoulders in a noncommittal but totally admitting way. I figured he must have wanted to show off for me because he was interested in me. So that's the night I became definitely interested in him and wanted to get to know him more. So exactly 3 weeks ago, we had that chance. Few of his other acquaintances were there and neither was female K. So we spent the better part of 2 hours just talking to and dancing with each other. He was going out of town for 2 weeks for a business trip, so as I was leaving, I slyly said, "Hey, maybe you might want my number in case you get bored out there..." He took it, although I didn't have a ton of hope that he would actually call or text. As I got home and mentally reviewed everything that we had talked about, I realized that we would be much better as friends and would not do well long-term as a romantic couple. So my brain has known this for three weeks. And he never called or texted, so I knew he felt the same. My head knew things would never work between us. But my head forgot to tell my heart...

So tonight was the advanced Cowboy Cha-Cha at 7:15. The advanced class is offered the first Saturday of every month. I went for the first time last month and got to dance with K2 the entire time. Female K was there with male acquaintance R who has helped all 3 of us become better dancers. It was a lot of fun, so I made sure to go tonight. Female K was taking lessons somewhere else tonight, and R is out of town, so it was just K2 and I. It was a lot of fun. It was really hard, and K2 was on the verge of quitting at one point, but I was able to encourage him enough that not only did he stay with it, but he finally got it, and I did too. Class ran late and we stayed after class to practice some more, so I probably had an hour and a half alone with him. So then we went up to the main bar area and met up with some of his other female acquaintances. Now here's where things get really weird.

I noticed a guy who looked a heck of a lot like my ex from 8 or 9 years ago. I wasn't sure it was him, and it took me most of the night to decide to go up to him. Meanwhile, K2 is busy dancing with all of his other female acquaintances or having conversations with other people that it is too loud for me to be able to hear and participate. I did get to do one Cowboy Cha-Cha with him out on the crowded dance floor to practice the new moves that we had learned, but that was it. I didn't even get a single two-step - not just with him, with ANYBODY. I did 2 or 3 solo, crowded cha-chas and a few line dances in, but not much. Around 10ish, K2 was off dancing with one of his girls and I decided to be brave and walked up to the guy who looked like my ex-boyfriend and said, "Excuse me, are you L?" He just smiled and said, "How have you been doing? It's been a long time." "You remember me?" "Yeah, Jennifer, right? So how've you been?" We chatted for a while, and I had this weird dynamic in my head alternating between "Man, he is so obnoxious, how did I go on more than one date with this man?" and "I really hope he asks for my number, it would be nice to go on a date." Confusion, confusion. Oh, and it turns out he had been married for 7 years but got divorced last fall. Not that it's relevant. Anyway, the conversation was nearing its natural end, and a song with a Cowboy Cha-Cha beat came on and I told L that I needed to go find my cha-cha partner. L understood and said "Go, go" in a friendly sort of way. I couldn't find K2 in time to dance with him - he wound up at the edge of the pack with one of his other girls. After the song ended, I said hi to them and made a joke, then left the dance floor to find L. He wasn't where I had left him. I saw him talking to a sound person, but he didn't turn my way when I approached, so I kept walking. What more was there to say? After another failed attempt to find K2 for a Cha-Cha, he and the girl he was dancing with directed me to the table they were sitting at. I had already confirmed to myself that K2 was not romantically interested in me because not only did he not call or text me when he was gone and had my number, but he also forgot to ask me how a couple of things went that I had told him 3 weeks ago were coming up. If he were interested, he would have at least remembered to ask about those events. So I know I'm just another friendly dance partner to him. Well, my brain knows, my head knows...So he gets up to dance with M, and the lady at the table who I had just met and I don't remember her name asked after a while where K2 was. J replied (I think, it is so loud in there) "He's probably off to the side talking to M, that's the girl he likes." My heart crashed to the floor. I think it was OK for him to not be interested in me, but for him to be interested in somebody else - somehow that hurts more. I don't know why, except that my heart definitely did not get the message from my head that we aren't supposed to like him anyway. Unfortunately, my heart despises logic. A few minutes later, L came up and asked J, who was sitting right next to me, to dance. I don't know why, but mentally I just snapped. My ex-boyfriend has this whole long conversation with me and then asks the lady next to me to dance? What the heck? Why do I care? I shouldn't care, he's obnoxious. And K2 was nowhere to be seen from my seated location. It was creeping close to 11 pm, and I have already been up since 5:30 and I have to get up at 5:30 again tomorrow (well, technically later this morning now that it's after midnight), so it was definitely time to leave. I saw K2 before I got to the exit, so I said good night, and, I'm not sure I heard this right, but it sounded something like, "Thanks a lot for tonight, Pal." Pal? I mean, yes, I guess that's what we are and should be, but it was just the icing on the cake to leave me feeling unwanted, unloved, loaveable, unLIFE. Most of the time I am OK being single, but then crap like this happens and...I feel like the scum of the earth. I'm only worthy of talking to or dancing with? I'm not worthy of actual time, real time, not bar time? I'm not worthy of kissing, of loving? Is it all because of my weight? Is it my insecurity about my weight? Maybe there's something inherently wrong with my personality that nobody can connect to. Of course not, it's my weight, most men are turned off by my weight (I guess since I told you I was 180-190 before, I am currently just under 230). Which makes me want to get back on my diet. Except then I'm losing weight for the wrong reasons, which never lasts. I need to want to lose weight because I'm tired of my back hurting and I'm tired of being tired all the time. But DAMMIT I should NOT have to lose weight to fall in love! There are some guys out there who prefer bigger women. I just have to find one who neither has nor wants kids, is okay with and not allergic to my dogs, and would be okay with the fact that I am bipolar. I have other criteria, of course, but these are those MUST HAVE/CAN'T STANDs. Can't stand. I can't stand myself sometimes. How can I eat so much? How did I let myself get so fat? Why don't I have better will power? I don't even like myself half the time, much less love myself, so how in the hell am I ever going to find somebody to love me when I don't love myself? But how can I? I'm gross and fat and lazy. I can barely even keep up with my laundry. I have two novels just waiting to be finished, but neither has been touched in months. And I have to deal with myself, all of myself, for the rest of my damn life. Depressed, manic, whatever, it's all me. You're supposed to love all the different parts of yourself, right? Fat lazy still borderline depressed WG does not feel very lovable right now. I have a lot of customers who love me because I am good at my job. I have family who loves me because they are supposed to. But what the hell. I feel like such a waste of space sometimes. No, I'm not suicidal, nobody panic, I'm just so terribly FRUSTRATED right now. I want to change. Why can't I change? I've gone 4 years without placing a bet of any kind (I'm a compulsive gambler) but I can't go a day without chocolate/sugar/junk food? What's that all about? And I want to be a writer but I can rarely even be bothered to write blog posts, much less work on my novels. Is this what my life will be like for the rest of my life? Lazy, unmotivated, ALONE and miserable? Man, I certainly hope not. I should be able to change. But how? How. How?!?!?! I don't know. I really kind of hate myself right now. If I hadn't tried to find K2 for the cha-cha, how much longer would I have chatted with L? Does it matter? He was obnoxious, why would you want to date somebody that obnoxious? You're not that desperate. Are you? Are you?! I don't know, maybe...it has been almost 2 years since my last attempt at a relationship, and that was a nightmare.Ugh. What do I want? What do I want from life? What do I want from myself? Why am I writing this all? Why am I sharing it? NOBODY is going to find this interesting. It's a boring journal post! Nobody is going to read it aside from your mother. Ugh. Why do I even have the urge to share this? Maybe somebody out there can relate and be happy that they aren't alone in these thoughts? Maybe somebody will read this and tell me I'm crazy? Is that a good thing? I don't even know.

X Bar and men. Then. Now. Always.

And my stupid head forgot to fill in my clueless, dumb, useless heart.

If you managed to read this far, THANK YOU, and if you have any advice or other comments, I would be happy to hear them. Sorry about the spam filter, I was up to my eyeballs in spam. Also it is now 12:43 am so forgive me for any typos I missed.

Me Again

2013-05-28T19:16:00.000-06:00

40 minutes ago, I got out of a massage and was so compelled to write a blog post that I could hardly focus on anything else. I finally got home, took the dogs out, and sat down at my keyboard...and now my mind is blank. Hopefully I can get those creative juices flowing again.

Again, it has been a month since I have blogged. I sincerely apologize for my absence. There are many reasons why I have not written for so long, but in the end, they're all mostly excuses, aren't they?

I used to love writing about my job and searching through pictures that I had taken. I think part of the fun has been taken out due to all of the computer problems I've been having lately. Just getting photos from my phone to my computer is a nightmare, much less sorting through them. Still, more excuses, right?

My depression has certainly been a factor for several months now, but I have been trying to force myself to do the things I used to love. Why haven't I been able to force myself to do this, when I have been able to force myself to do other things (like going dancing)?

I have been much busier than usual for the last three or four weeks (which is certainly a good thing), but I have still had some time where I could have written a blog post.

So what is the answer? What is the solution? I don't know. For today, the solution is to write about myself (again) rather than about grooming.

As I sit here and think, I am supposing that the extraordinarily slow growth of this blog may be a factor. For quite a while, I spent hours every week writing for or managing or promoting this blog. I worked and I worked and I promoted - and in the end, less than 100 people were reading my blog on any given day. I knew this would be a slow process, but I think my depression may have made growing this blog any farther seem like a monumental task. So I think I need to re-evaluate why I am even writing this blog.

I think at first I just wanted to express myself, but then I discovered that I could make money with advertising, so my blog became my ticket out of grooming. They say it takes 2 years to actually be profitable with a blog, and most bloggers quit before that. I think I got a little distracted by the money - I've "earned" $34 since about August - but Google doesn't write you a check until you've earned at least $100. So of course I really wanted to hit that $100 mark.

Maybe the answer is for me to stop caring about the money. And really, now that I haven't been blogging much, I only check my earnings report once a week or so, simply out of curiosity. Maybe I need to just write whatever I want, whether or not it relates to grooming, and if nobody reads it, that's just fine. Because the other reason I started the blog was to get in the habit of writing every day. So if I'm avoiding writing because I can't find passion for the subject that day - it should be more important for my long-term goals just to make sure I am writing a blog post about something, anything.

Hm. So maybe I need to allow myself more freedom about writing topics in order to write more, and care less about my audience or profit.

Well, if you have read this far, you deserve a dog picture, so here is a pic of Hailey and Dillin after their most recent grooming.

Creative Grooming Attempt 1

2013-04-26T20:25:00.000-06:00

Oh my goodness, I am SO SO late in posting this! I've had the idea for a couple of months, and it's been two weeks since I actually did these grooms; I've just been working so much that I'm constantly exhausted. I'm talking 11-hour days :-P Those long days should be done with soon, though we're still in the midst of busy season.

Anyway, I've decided to try my hand at some creative grooming. I've never really tried any before, and I figured I should probably try it on my own dogs first before trying it on customers' dogs.

I was inspired by this blog post to try using sidewalk chalk to do some temporary color on my dogs. I thought I would also try to create my own stencil and attempt to shave it onto Dillin and color it onto Hailey.

Here is Hailey before any sort of bath, haircut, or color. Doesn't she just look thrilled?

Here she is after. I actually did Dillin first, so I knew that trying to fill in that stencil with chalk color was never going to work. It was the end of a very long day and we were both tired, so I just colored her tail blue really quickly with the chalk.

Here's a better view. Her eyes are saying, "Can we PLEASE go home now?!"

I got the quick dog out of the way first here, even though I groomed her second. There is SO much more to say about Dillin because there is more that I did (and attempted) on him than on Hailey. Here he is before. His Mohawk was really out of control!

Here he is after the bath and haircut and with his Mohawk trimmed up nicely and dyed blue. Why did I go for blue on both Hailey and Dillin? Simply because I am a huge Denver Nuggets fan, and their colors are blue and yellow, and I suspected (correctly, as you'll see) that the yellow wouldn't look very good. Also they are in the playoffs right now and I wanted to show my team spirit.

Here's a side view. I REALLY like the way his Mohawk looks colored in - I think I'll need to make that part of his permanent look, and maybe change the color every time I groom him since chalk is so washable.

So then I attempted the stencil. I had printed out a logo of the Nuggets' that spelled out "Denver Nuggets" and cut out the letters carefully with a razor blade. It didn't seem overly intricate - until even my small toe blade was having problems fitting into the spaces. The snow-capped mountain peak turned out OK, but the rest was a wash, so I decided to free-hand a large DN into his side instead. Here's how that turned out. (Oh, and if you're keeping track, this is Plan B...)

Um, it kinda looks like I took a weed whacker to his side. That's not a good look. Can I cover it up with color?

Before I show you how that turned out, here is his other side. I had attempted to free-hand a DN on his side with the yellow chalk, but as you can see, it just looks like he rolled in mustard. Oops.

Anyway, Plan C was to color in the DN like a different logo - the bottoms of the letters are yellow, the tops are blue, and parts of the top right of the D and the top left of the N are a white snow-capped peak. I can manage that, right? Yeah, not so much. No matter how long you soak chalk, you still have to apply quite a bit of pressure to use it, which makes it difficult to work with in small patches. Here's Plan D.

And another view with him looking at the camera. I'm really looking forward to those shaved patches on his side growing in a smidge so I can take him back in and shave him down so he doesn't look like such a wreck. This is why I plan to experiment on my own dogs first!

As a side note, the color has worn off pretty quickly; the chalk on Dillin's sides had rubbed off within a day or two and his Mohawk and Hailey's tail have faded to a very pale pastel blue.

I definitely plan on trying more creative grooming, and I am going to a day-long seminar on it in June, which I am looking forward to. I will definitely plan on sharing all of my creative grooming experiments, both good and bad, with you all. Thanks for being so patient in between blog posts!

OAY

2013-04-05T19:35:00.001-06:00

OAY.

Those 3 letters will make a groomer cringe every time.

What in the world does it stand for?

Once A Year, as in a dog that only gets groomed once a year, usually in the Spring. Some dogs get groomed twice a year and are in just as bad of shape as the once a year dogs. Either way, you know you are in for a mess - lots of undercoat, lots of mats, and sometimes lots of attitude because these dogs aren't as used to grooming as those who are groomed more frequently.

I groomed this dog yesterday. I had done her one other time - in September! So she's a twice a year dog, but she had enough undercoat to represent an OAY, so she's the dog who gave me the idea for this blog post.

Anyway, in her before picture, you can see that there is a ton of undercoat packed in there and falling out in clumps.

It took a lot of scrubbing to get her clean underneath all the undercoat she had and a LONG time (well over an hour) with the velocity dryer to get her dry and remove most of the undercoat. Here is how the bathing/drying room looked when I was done, before I even swept all of the hair into a nice pile.

And here's all that hair swept into a pile. For you non-groomers who read my blog, imagine all of that hair flying around in that small room (I was standing in the doorway to take the picture) with a hot dryer and you can picture how fun that is. I'm going to be fishing Golden hair out of my eyes for days.

Here is the final haircut - nice and short and blended and smooth.

Here she is with the pile of hair on the floor below her...

...and next to her on the table. Luckily she was really sweet and really well-behaved. Still, this entire process took almost 2 1/2 hours - and she was only scheduled for 2 hours. This is one way OAY dogs can really screw up groomers; they usually take much longer to do than dogs who get groomed more frequently.

I really wish I had taken before and after pictures of the Golden/Australian Shepherd mix I groomed a couple of days ago that really does only get groomed once a year. He had a ton of undercoat and a ton of mats, and the owner wanted a very short haircut. It was a dramatic difference - but sadly the owner was late dropping off and I knew the dog would take longer than scheduled, so I shaved a couple of minutes off of the grooming time by skipping the pictures.

Anyway, here is a Saint Bernard I did a couple of weeks ago. He is a twice a year dog - between the shedding undercoat and the fact that he has skin allergies and constantly chews on himself caused some matting on his butt/hips that needed to be dealt with. Here he is before the bath.

And close up.

Between his chewing and my dematting, he did have some holes in his rear, but I still think he turned out nice.

Next we have a Bearded Collie. It had "only" been 3 months since I groomed him, but the extent of matting I saw was representative of what you would expect in an OAY, so I chose to include him in this blog post. I groomed him a couple of weeks ago.

The owners had been doing an OK job of brushing out his body, but his legs and face had completely gotten out of control. Here is a close-up of the matting on one of his legs.

Here he is after the bath and blow dry, which took FOREVER because his hair is unnaturally thick for a Bearded Collie; it more closely resembles an Old English Sheepdog, and, being matted, it really took a long time to get it all dry.

He also had some nasty skin problem - it was orange and greasy. Yuck! I wish I had noticed it before the bath, though: I think medicated shampoo would have been more effective if I had shaved him before the bath.

Here he is after. As you can see, I had to shave his body pretty short to get under the mats; I also had to shave his ears - they were so badly matted that I couldn't tell what was skin and what was mat.

I also had to take his muzzle much shorter than I would have liked, but trying to demat that area would have hurt him, so I just used the longest blade I could to get under the mats. This is a pretty typical look for an OAY: shaved body and ears, short face, and let's-leave-some-hair-on-top-of-his-head.

I'm just at the very beginning of OAY season, so I may very well have sequels to this post in the future. Also, please note: I am not trying to judge people who do not get their dogs groomed frequently, I am simply presenting a groomer's POV on what it is like to groom these types of dogs.

Spring is Here!

2013-03-26T10:23:00.000-06:00

How do I know that Spring has arrived?

Is it because the calendar says so?

Is it because business has picked up?

Those are good indicators, but as a groomer, the biggest indication that Spring has arrived is that the number of filthy, matted, and/or shedding dogs has increased dramatically. Sure, I see those types of dogs year-round, but the number of each type goes WAY up in the Spring.

Let's start with filthy. I do this Westie puppy about every 5 weeks. Being a terrier, she basically lives in the dirt - and you can tell.

By itself, this picture gives a pretty good idea of how dirty she was, but it is in comparison to the after picture that you can REALLY tell how dirty she was.

That's quite the color change, wouldn't you say? By the way, the reason her front legs look partially shaved and funny is because I think the vet removed her dew claws while they spayed her.

Here is another dirty regular of mine. I'm not sure how well the pictures show how dirty he was, but since I see him so regularly, it stood out to me as soon as I saw him how dirty he was.

And here he is after the bath but before the haircut - I forgot to take a picture after the haircut, but this picture still does justice to how dirty he was before the bath.

Even if you can't see the difference between dirty and clean, I think it's neat how fluffy he gets.

Now on to the matted dogs. I'm not sure how many other groomers do this, but for a lot of dogs that are only matted in a few places, I will leave them longer (up to 5/8") where they are not matted and go shorter where I need to in order to get under the mats.

This is a Labradoodle I did recently. You can see how curly she is, but without feeling her, it's hard to say how matted she is.

Here is a close-up of some of the matting. When you spread out a dog's hair like that, you should be able to see skin, not more hair.

The bath and blow dry (non-groomers please note - you MUST dry the dog completely, preferably with a high velocity dryer, for this to work. I do NOT recommend washing matted dogs to non-groomers!!!) usually loosens mats up enough to get a longer blade through - but I don't feel the need to wash and dry non-matted hair when it is SO long, so sometimes I will take my longest blade through the dog where I can before the bath. This is how the dog looked before I washed her.

Note that I left all the matting on the dog so I could loosen it with the dryer and get a longer blade through her.

Here is how she looked after the bath and blow dry.

She was also pretty dirty. Notice how she is less shiny after the bath? That's because she was SO greasy before I washed her.

Here is her after picture. Can you even tell where I had to take her shorter due to matting?

Before I learned this technique, I would have had to shave her nearly to the skin all over her body before the bath. I like to think that even if owners can notice the shorter spots, they appreciate that their dog isn't that shorter (or shorter!) on their entire body. This method takes longer than just shaving the dog before the bath, but I think the end result is generally worth it.

Here is another dog that came in extremely matted on about 1/3 of her body. Can you tell where her harness goes?

How about now?

Here's my PSA for the day - if your dog regularly wears a harness, you really need to take it off and brush the hair under it at least 2-3 times per week to avoid this kind of matting.

Again, much of her body was not matted, so I used my long blade on the parts of her that weren't matted before the bath. I forgot to take a picture of that before I washed her, but here she is straight after being washed and dried.

From here, I try progressively shorter and shorter blades until I find the longest blade that will fit under the matting.

Here she is all done. She was a little wild for her head, so forgive me if it isn't perfect.

Would you even believe that's the same dog? Anyway, if I had shaved before the bath, I would have had to use my shortest, or maybe second shortest, blade to get under the matting. She would have been bald, possibly even pink. I am glad I have learned the skills to send matted dogs home with some hair still.

Now for the shedding dogs. Dogs shed year-round, some more than others. But the worst sheds of the year tend to be Spring and Fall. This Golden was, I think, also blowing puppy coat. Here is how much hair came out with just the bath and blow dry.

Now let's add in the hair that I got out with my brushes and other tools, and you get a pretty impressive final total.

Well, this blog post was longer than I anticipated, so I should probably stop here.

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into what Spring is like for a groomer!

Depression, Part 2

2013-03-20T18:31:00.001-06:00

Part A, 3-19-13

I had a little bit of a mini meltdown tonight, and my mother echoed back the advice I always give her when something is bothering her: Journal, Journal, Journal.

Since writing my last blog post about depression, I have received SO MUCH support from almost everybody, even total strangers. This can't cure my depression, of course, but it softens the blow to realize how many people care about me and my well-being.

I had been doing okay this week. Not great. Not terrible. Just hanging in there.

The last few days, with my mom's encouragement, I have been forcing myself to do some of the things that I usually enjoy but had given up since becoming depressed.

The automatic advice people give to those with depression is usually "Exercise" or "Do something you enjoy."

There are SO many things wrong with this well-intentioned advice. For starters, this alone will not cure clinical depression. But mostly - doing ANYTHING becomes difficult with depression. With severe depression, you have to pat yourself on the back just for getting out of bed and brushing your teeth. It's not laziness - you really aren't capable of things anymore.

Anyway, I've been REALLY forcing myself to do things. I went to a Bollywood party on Saturday, I took the dogs for a long walk yesterday, and tonight I went to a line dance class that I used to attend nearly every Tuesday - and then I had a mini meltdown.

The fact that I went at all is a big win - but I think I expected too much of myself. I really tried to have fun and enjoy myself. I think I even smiled once or twice.

But I was absolutely incapable of letting loose and ACTUALLY having a good time. My brain and body just aren't ready for that yet. I think being in a place where I have had so much fun in the past and being absolutely unable to truly have fun just broke me apart.

I feel like a shell of a human being right now, like somebody used a Shop-Vac to suck out 75% of my soul. It sucks. Who wants to walk around and experience life as just an apathetic zombie? Not I!

Luckily my mom lives nearby and I was able to stop in and see her. We went on a cruise together about a year and a half ago, and when we went swimming with the dolphins in Cozumel, my mom spent a lot of money on one of the photo book packages that they offered.

After I vented to her and tried to make sense of what I was feeling, she said, "I think it's time for the book."

I had no idea what book she was talking about until she pulled the dolphin book off of the mantel.

Looking at the pictures of the two of us in our swimsuits wearing absurdly tiny life vests and interacting with the dolphin always puts a smile on my face. That cruise was one of the best weeks of my life, and swimming with the dolphins was one of the highlights of the week. I love all animals, but dolphins in particular - I even have a dolphin tattoo that I got when I was in college.

So this book is such a brilliant redirect. I am able to look at the pictures and remember a fun time, and what it is like to be able to have fun and enjoy life, and I am able to have better hope for the future that I will once again be able to enjoy life someday.

PS - I danced at the Bollywood party on Saturday, walked for a brisk half hour yesterday, and danced for an hour-long class tonight - all that exercise did not magically cure my depression. I am going to continue to force myself to exercise - but because it makes my body feel better (my back in particular) and the few weeks I had stopped it all have already caught up to me. Exercise is not the magic cure-all those of you who have never suffered from clinical depression.

Part B - 3-20-13

Dragged myself to the gym after work today. Luckily I had a relatively easy day at work. It was the lowest-energy, most pitiful workout ever - but it was better than nothing.

It is 6:24 PM, and all I want to do right now is take a nap...

Tomorrow night, I am going to a book club meeting with 1 person I somewhat know and 8 strangers. This is something that might make me a little nervous under normal circumstances - but my anxiety level is already ramping up. It's so hard to put on a fake smile and brave face for strangers sometimes.

I long to feel normal again.

I am trying to write a grooming-related post...but I really can't promise when I will be able to get one out. Bear with me for a while, and I promise the dog pics will be back soon!

Anyway, thanks for listening to me ramble.

Depression

2013-03-13T20:09:00.001-06:00

I haven't had any motivation to write a blog post all week, so it occurred to me when I was driving home from work that maybe I should share with you WHY I have little to no motivation to write blog posts right now.

I don't know if I have mentioned this in any previous blog posts, but I have bipolar disorder. I have had several (hypo)manic episodes, but I struggle much more with the depression side.

Just over a year ago, I was put on a new combination of meds that FINALLY pulled me out of a depression that had lasted, to varying degrees, for about 3 years. I felt "normal" for the first time in SO long.

Unfortunately, mental health is such a fragile thing with this disorder.

I didn't want to see the signs at first, but over the weekend I added up all the pieces and realized that my depression has come back.

Acknowledging depression is a double-edged sword - once you acknowledge it, you can start to get help and feel better. Unfortunately, you are also forced to wonder how far down you'll go and how long you will be down that dark hole. For me, it also reminds me that this is a battle I will have to fight OVER and OVER and OVER for THE REST OF MY LIFE. I usually try not to look at the big picture like that, but a new episode reminds me what a true disease Bipolar Disorder is and that it will be a lifelong battle to try to find the happy zone between depressed and manic.

So now I want to try to describe clinical depression for those of you who have never suffered from it. It's easy for an outsider to say "You'll feel better if you exercise" or "Just stop feeling sorry for yourself," but sometimes those things just aren't possible for somebody who is depressed. I actually WAS exercising - until the depression came creeping back.

Everybody experiences highs and lows in life. There is a certain amount of "sad depression" that a person can expect to experience in a lifetime, like after the death of a loved one. Clinical depression is something different. Clinical depression happens when certain chemicals in your brain are out of whack. This is an actual medical condition and may require medications to fix it. You don't blame somebody with Type 1 (childhood onset) Diabetes for having a pancreas that doesn't produce insulin, so you also shouldn't judge a person who has clinical depression.

Anyway, try to imagine you are suddenly living in a world where you are constantly in neck-deep molasses. Just moving and breathing would become difficult, wouldn't it? The thought of exerting any more physical energy than ABSOLUTELY necessary is EXHAUSTING. It's hard enough to get out of bed in a molasses-filled world, much less exercise.

Your movements become slower.

Your thoughts become slower.

All you want to do is sleep - or you may not be able to sleep at all.

Everything requires 10 times more effort than before, even things you (used to) enjoy.

I've been so depressed in the past that I couldn't be bothered to brush my teeth more than once or twice a week. Same with showering. Exercise? Forget it!

For me, a depressive episode starts with "Meh." That's where I am right now. I don't really care about anything. I had lost almost 40 pounds - then fell off my diet and exercise program AND DIDN'T EVEN CARE. A "normal" person would probably be pissed off that they were starting to gain back weight that they had lost. I just don't have the energy to care.

I had been going dancing again, 2+ nights a week. That's just too much effort and not enough sleep right now. I LOVE dancing - but right now? Meh.

If I am unfortunate enough to have a depressive episode that lasts longer than "Meh," I hit "Blah." With "Meh," I'm too apathetic to even be sad. I just don't care about anything. Once I hit "Blah," I have now realized how much my life sucks. My self-loathing REALLY ramps up at this point. My life sucks and I have absolutely NO energy whatsoever to try to fix it - which of course makes me hate myself even more. Now I am fully aware how much my life sucks, and I continue to feel worse and worse until I hit "Why?"

"Why?" can stand for "Why me?" or "Why now?" or, worst of all, "Why am I even alive?" "Why?" is the most dangerous stage of depression. I have been fortunate in that I have had very few suicidal thoughts - but when they happen, it's in this stage. I usually wish I had never been born or that I would die, but luckily I almost never want to actively kill myself. Still, wanting to die is a TERRIBLE way to live. This is rock bottom, like sitting in the bottom of a deep, dark well and wondering if you will ever get out and see the light of day again.

I am extremely lucky, though. I have an aunt and uncle that help me pay for all my therapy, psychiatrist appointments, medications, and blood tests. I don't know where I would be without their help. It took ALL of that to finally find a good combination of meds and therapy that finally pulled me out of my last depression. And I am hopeful that I caught this depression quickly enough to turn it around before it gets worse. I had my regular appointment with my therapist on Monday and told her the situation, so she is helping me come up with a plan to cope. My psychiatrist squeezed me into a last-minute appointment yesterday so we could talk about my meds, and I upped the dosage of my Lithium, so hopefully that will kick in pretty quickly.

Anyway, I'm terrified, as usual, about how bad my depression will get. I am pissed off that I will have to deal with this periodically for the rest of my life. But I am also hopeful that I will feel better quicker than ever this time around since I finally have a good support system in place around me.

I hope I have been able to explain clinical depression a little for those of you who have never experienced it before. If you have ANY questions or comments for me, please feel free to leave them here or email me. I sort of feel like it is my duty as somebody who suffers from depression and Bipolar Disorder to reach out and support other sufferers as well as educate those who are not familiar with these all-too-common mental illnesses.

If you are feeling suicidal right now, you can find a list of suicide hotline numbers around the world here.

For more information about depression, try PubMed Health, WebMD, Wikipedia, or NIMH.

For more information about Bipolar Disorder, try PubMed Health, NIMH, APA, or Mayo Clinic.

Hailey and Dillin Cuddling; Getting Groomed

2013-03-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

My dogs, Hailey and Dillin, NEVER cuddle with each other. They are best friends, and they love each other, but Hailey just does not like cuddling with Dillin. I have only seen them cuddle one other time, and that was more than a year ago! So I am very glad that I had my phone handy so that I could snap a few pictures of this rare event!

This is my favorite picture of the bunch, with Hailey resting her head on my leg and Dillin resting his head on her back with his eyes closed. Looking at this picture, you would have no idea what a rare occurrence this is!

Anyway, I also brought them with me last week to groom them. The cuddling incident, if you couldn't tell by their scruffiness, took place before I groomed them. So here's Dillin before his bath. (He's a Cockapoo for people who are new to my page.)

Here he is after the bath, but before the haircut. I was squeaking a toy to get his attention, so that is why he has such a strange look on his face. See how nicely he fluffs up?

It had been about 6 weeks since I last groomed them. Their hair, but Dillin's in particular, grows SO fast! I took his body shorter than half an inch last time, and look how long it got.

This is the same length I did on him a month and a half ago. I just did part of his haircut and took a picture so that you could really see how much his hair has grown. For the life of me I can't understand how people can go 3 months or more between grooming - for me, 6 weeks is pretty much the upper limit of what I can tolerate before I HAVE to groom them.

Here's Dillin's after picture. I love the Mohawk!

Here is Hailey before the bath. I think she is an American Eskimo/Poodle mix. She doesn't mind being groomed, except she HATES the bath and blow dry. You can tell how upset she is about what's coming based on how far back and down her ears are. She is not a happy camper in this picture.

Here she is after, MUCH happier! I took her ears a little shorter than I usually do, but I think they are cute at this length.

OK, here's one last picture of Hailey and Dillin cuddling. Hailey's head is hanging off the sofa, so she just looks like a furry lump.

Before and After Pics 2/25/13

2013-02-25T11:47:00.001-07:00

Here is the final batch of before and after pictures that I assembled last month and haven't posted yet.

This Cockapoo is one of my regulars. They like him to dry curly, and since we don't have kennel dryers, I do the whole haircut before the bath and send him home damp so that he dries curly. They usually like him to have this ENORMOUS teddy bear head. Here it is all brushed out - he didn't want to look at the camera, so that is why my hand is in the picture holding his head up.

Here's another view of that huge head.

This particular time, the father and teenage daughter dropped him off instead of the mother, and they thought it would be hilarious to do something different with his head - they decided on a mustache and big topknot. Here's how it looks all fluffy before the bath.

And here he is after the bath. Sadly, I don't know how he looks after he dries, but you can see his ears and topknot curling already. (Side note - I did him again recently, and the mom wanted me to go back to the big poofy teddy bear head.)

This Westie was a new client. The owner comes in and says, "The terror - I mean terrier ;-) - is here." And he kinda was a terror. Here he is before the bath.

And here's my hand after blow drying him - he scratched me to pieces!

And here he is after.

This little guy is another of my regulars. I just did him again the other day, although this picture is from a couple of months ago. Here he is before the bath, all curly.

Here he is after the bath, all nice and fluffy.

I take him pretty short in the summer, but she wanted him a little longer for winter. See all the orange scraggly stuff on his back? I decided to just scissor that off without using a blade or snap-on comb first.

Here's his back after I scissored him. I'm pretty impressed with how smooth I got it.

And here's the final result. He's such a good boy; I just love grooming him.

This last dog is a Spanish Water Dog. They generally have their hair corded, but these people wanted her to look curly rather than corded. Here she is before I did anything to her.

I decided to use the high velocity dryer to loosen up all the curl and get rid of some of the dander, then I brushed her out.

Here she is after some scissoring. Since they wanted her curly, I did the haircut before the bath.

Here she is, damp and miserable, ready to go home and dry curly. Her owners were THRILLED that I didn't shave her. I haven't seen her again, but I hope they do come back soon - she was really good to groom.

I hope you've enjoyed these pics! Hopefully I'll have something of substance for you in a few days.

Tango Dance Class/Confidence

2013-02-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I attended a Tango dance lesson that helped me change the way I see myself. I wanted to write about the experience sooner, but didn't get around to it. I've decided to write this post as if I had written it that very night after coming home because it seems like it will be easier to remember everything that way. Anyway, here we go!

So yesterday, somebody I know went to a board game meetup group. I forgot meetup.com even existed, so I thought I would get on and see if I could find any groups that interest me. As I was perusing all the groups in my area, I came across one for people who have traveled/would like to travel/are interested in other cultures, countries, languages, etc. This is right up my alley!

I have always been interested in other cultures and languages. I started studying French in 7th grade, even though Spanish would have been much more practical in the area of the country where I live. I continued studying French through a couple years of college and even tried learning Spanish in college, too, but I literally walked from my French class to my Spanish class, and I was having a hard time keeping the languages separate. "Hola, me llamo Jennifer, je suis tres bien, muchas gracias mon ami!" After I dropped out of college, I bought an "Italian for Dummies" book, but the French and Spanish I already knew were taking up too much space in my brain for me to learn another romance language.

Then, a few years ago, I fell in love with Bollywood movies and music and Indian culture as a whole. (I blogged about this last fall here.) Most of my friends and family pretty much think I'm crazy for having this obsession. Most people I know don't like subtitles, and a lot of people hate musicals. But for me, I've always loved musicals, I love a good love story, and I love color. Bollywood has all that and more!

Anyway, I am alone in this passion; I don't have anybody to share it with. I haven't traveled much but would love to if I could afford it. So this group for people who love other countries, etc had my name written all over it! And the super duper extra bonus? The very next meetup was this Tango dance lesson! I LOVE to dance. When I was in my mid-twenties, I used to go out country dancing 2-3 times a week. I can two-step, triple-step, triple-two-step, waltz, line dance, and do a little bit of swing. I briefly took a Bollywood dance class, but I was too out of shape to keep up. I've always wanted to do more dancing in more styles, but I was always afraid to go alone and not have a partner to dance with. So here we have a group of people all going together; maybe some of the men will dance with me after the lesson during the "practica"?

This group is also doing a masquerade ball for Carnivale, which looks really interesting (I blogged about that here).

Anyway, I didn't have anything to wear for the masquerade and I was worried it would take a long time to find a cheap, nice-looking dress that fit, so I decided to start shopping today since I only have a couple of weeks before the masquerade.

Dress shopping turned out to be fun! I've lost about 35 pounds, so I wasn't really sure what size I am anymore. I grabbed a bunch of size 16s and size 18s to see what would fit. To my surprise, some of the 16s fit!!! I don't even know how many years it has been since I have fit into a size 16. And the dresses were so cheap (Yay for Ross!) that I could afford one dress for the masquerade and another for tonight's Tango lesson. I walked out of that store grinning from ear to ear - I'm starting to look good!

Time was slipping away from me, so I ran home to shower and get ready. This is not a great picture, and I am obviously not a Photoshop wizard, but imagine a beautiful dark purple dress that makes me look like a shape other than a rectangle or maybe an apple. I felt curvy and beautiful in that dress!

So I walked into the hall where the dance lesson was to be held full of confidence. I felt beautiful, and smart, and funny, and WORTHY. I walked in and headed for the area where the group was supposed to meet. Not having been to any other meetups with this group, I didn't really know anybody other than a few small pictures online. I saw a couple of women about my age sitting off to one side. Being terribly shy, it was somewhat difficult, but with my newfound confidence, I walked up and asked if they were with the group. They said yes, so I introduced myself, sat down, and started talking to them.

Talking to other women should not be a huge ordeal for a straight woman, but I get so anxious and shy that I usually hang out alone, too afraid to talk to anybody, so having the confidence to start talking to these two women was more encouraging and positive for me than you can even imagine.

During the dance lesson, which included a lot more people than just the ones in our group, all of the men had to shuffle around to different partners throughout the class - and even though there weren't quite enough men to go around, I managed to always have a man to dance with, so that was exciting! Especially since half the class was about leading and following, and the women had to place their hands on the mens' chests and let the men push them (terrible description, sorry). Anyway, that would have been awkward to do with a woman, especially one I had never met before.

I took care to remember the names of all the men I danced with, especially the younger ones, and after the lesson was over, I went up to one of the men and asked him to dance.

This blog post is getting to be too long, sorry. Anyway, long story short, I danced and chatted with several men all night long, and one in particular. He had experience with Salsa and Swing dancing, and I had the Country experience, and we had just had that first Tango lesson - so we wound up doing this crazy mishmash dancing. It was so much fun!

I still can't believe I had the nerve to chat up men all night long. I was even flirting - or trying to anyway. I've NEVER been brave about talking to men.

At the end of the night, I offered my number to the guy I had talked to and danced with the most, saying that if he ever wanted a Swing or Salsa partner, that he should give me a call. He was very friendly and gracious and even put my number in his phone in a way that he would remember who I was.

I have no idea whether or not he'll call - but it doesn't even matter. Just the fact that I was so brave all night, that I was able to talk and flirt with men, the fact that I had the nerve to give my phone number to a guy...

I've already won.

:-)

Mohawk and More

2013-02-16T18:41:00.001-07:00

I've done an interesting variety haircuts over the last couple of days, from long to short and including a Mohawk, which I hardly ever get to do.

I may as well go in order. My first dog of the day yesterday was a Miniature Poodle - half an hour late, but probably not her fault. Anyway, here she is before the bath.

Her owner told me that she can be snappy, and that she had been okay with her first groomer, but ever since that groomer left, she had been snappy and hated to be groomed, so she decided to try somebody else.

So I went really slowly with her, because I could see how scared she was, and I brushed her out as gently as I could. She was actually fine; she didn't give me a single problem.

Here she is all done - 2 1/2 hours later, putting me WAY behind.

(Side note - she came back today and said this haircut was still too long, so I took her a little shorter. I didn't have time to take a follow-up pic.)

This next dog is a Brussels Griffon, although they like his face and body short, so he almost looks like a Pug with a Mohawk.

Isn't he cute?

My last dog of the day yesterday was this Lhasa Apso. He looked okay when he came in - until I took his sweater off. Do you see how his body looks smoother than his legs? That's actually because the wool sweater had basically knitted his own hair into a sweater of its own - everything the sweater touched was one solid pelt, and the legs were actually in pretty good shape.

Here is a close-up look at the matting on his body. See how you can't see his skin no matter how much we separate the hair?

When I was first learning how to groom, I was taught to NEVER wash a matted dog, because water makes mats worse. I also give this same advice to my clients. There IS one exception to the rule - IF you have a high velocity dryer, and you have the time to dry the dog ALL THE WAY straight through, this will loosen up the mats.

Here he is after the bath and blow dry.

He even changed colors! He was a little dirty.

Here is another close-up of the mats, this time after the bath and blow dry. See how the "sweater" came apart into smaller mats that aren't right on top of the skin?

(It's a good thing I proofread my posts first - I had completely forgotten to add this picture!)

Anyway, If I had shaved him before the bath, like I was originally taught, I would have had to shave him all the way down to the skin with my shortest blade. By loosening the mats up first, I wound up with this final result.

Still pretty short, but not down to the skin bald.

So that, with a couple of dogs I didn't get pictures of, was yesterday.

Today I got to start with this Cockapoo. His front legs were really choppy, but since that was the only place on him that looked like that, I suspect it is from him chewing on himself rather than his owners cutting him at home.

Here's a close-up of those funky legs.

Are you kidding me?! I just now realized that I apparently forgot to take after pictures. Sorry, folks. Anyway, he was a little bit matted, but I got him all brushed out and did a light trim on him.

Then there's this cute Brussels Griffon puppy. I think she's about 5 months old now. She is so wiggly that it is hard to do anything with her. Her owner brought treats today, which helped a little, but not quite enough. In the meantime I am glad she doesn't have much hair yet. I still wish I could trim under her eyes better, but I just couldn't hold her head still enough; there was too much risk of me injuring her.

My last dog of the day today was a Doodle, one of my requests. Here he is when he first came in.

He gets taken down with a short blade every time he comes in, so I find it faster to shave him quickly before the bath so that there is less hair to wash and dry. I forgot to take a picture after the shave and before the bath, but here he is directly after the bath and blow dry.

Notice how uneven he is? When I shave a dog before the bath (and I'm not then sending them home damp to dry curly), I'm going for speed over style. The groomer who taught me to do this once said, "Sometimes the dog looks like it has mange when I put it in the tub."

Here's the final result. As you can see, they do like him quite short.

He's such a good boy!

Anyway, I have another personal blog post in the wings, but I wanted to get out at least one dog post in between each personal post. I am The Writing GROOMER after all.

Unexpectedly Good Night

2013-02-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

(I wrote this last night but decided not to post it until today.)

So I was driving home at 11 tonight and I started laughing so hard that it caused a coughing fit. I had to force myself to calm down and just smirked the rest of the way home.

Now let me start at the beginning.

When I was 21, I had dropped out of school and moved back in with my parents. All of my friends were still in college, so I had no friends around and I wanted to get out of the house a bit. I had always loved to dance, though I had never really had any lessons, and I had heard about this Country Western bar in town that did line dance classes on Tuesday nights for $3 and free beginners lessons on the two-step, triple-step, triple-two step, and the waltz on Wednesday nights. I don't remember which I did first, but I started going to more and more lessons and became more confident in my dancing.

Eventually men started asking me to dance, and as I got better, I realized I was pretty good. One gentleman in particular, somewhere in his 40s or 50s, taught me SO much. I suppose he introduced himself the first time we danced, but I couldn't remember his name, so in my head and to my friends and family, I always referred to him as Purple Shirt Guy. He had a Thursday night shirt and a Saturday night shirt, and they were both purple. Anyway, once I built up my endurance, we would dance for half an hour straight before I would need to stop for water.

I was never the skinny, beautiful girl who got asked to dance constantly, but I had a few guys who would make it a point to dance with me, especially my Purple Shirt Guy. I also learned quite a few line dances so that I could dance without a partner. And when I was on the dance floor - I felt special.

How do I even explain this in a way it makes sense?

I've always suffered from low self esteem. I always thought that I was never good at anything, I was just the smart fat chick that guys ignored. But when I realized I was actually a pretty good dancer...I suddenly felt better about myself. My weight didn't matter (as much). I always swore that someday I WOULD be the skinny chick that all the guys wanted to dance with.

Anyway, for a while in my early- to mid-twenties, I was dancing there and another Country bar 2-3 nights a week. I grew up a lot in those bars. I met, made out with, and even dated guys from the bars. Guys constantly told me I was light on my feet. It didn't matter how heavy I was, because I could be led so easily. I was GOOD.

A few years ago, life and depression got in the way of me going out and dancing. I put on about 50 pounds and became somewhat of a recluse.

So then last fall, shortly before my 30th birthday, I decided things needed to change. I was finally feeling like a normal human being (i.e. not depressed) and I was ready to take charge of my life. I started Weight Watchers Online and joined Curves (a gym for women). I lost about 35 pounds, then I joined a meetup group and took a Tango lesson last month. Around that same time, I went back to one of the Country bars - and remembered just how much I love to dance.

Fast forward to tonight. I had been to each bar again once or twice before tonight. I decided to go take the $3 line dance class (still only $3 after nearly 9 years - amazing, right?)

So I got there about 15 minutes before the class started. I put my coat on a chair (I keep my ID, money, phone, and keys in my jeans pockets so that I don't need to bring in my purse and leave it unattended) and stood next to the dance floor watching the line dancers. Every Tuesday night, the same group of people do all the line dances that have ever been taught on a Tuesday. I certainly don't remember any of the ones I learned that long ago, because the Tuesday night line dances are never seen in either bar any other night of the week. So I was just watching to see if I could pick up some steps.

A few minutes later, this blonde girl comes up to me and asks me where people usually put their coats. I told her that the coat check is closed on Tuesdays since it is such a slow night, but she could put her coat on a chair at the same table my coat was at. She thanked me, put her coat down, then introduced herself and we started chatting.

Even though she is 34, she reminded me of myself when I was 21 and I was just starting to venture out on my own and discover myself. In her case, she has just recently gotten out of a bad relationship, and she is learning how to be single again.

So we chatted until the dance class started, about 15 minutes late. We danced next to each other during the lesson, then retreated to our table to chat more after the class. At this point, I had high hopes that the DJ and/or band would start playing a few Cowboy Cha-Chas. It's a line dance that you can do alone or with a partner. It's a pretty popular dance done to a certain beat (I'm not a musical person, so I can't tell you what time it is, I can only hear it and know it's the right beat), so I figured I could at least do a few of those and call it a night.

I did get in a few Cha-Chas, and my new friend was impressed but too scared to get out and try it. Eventually, the DJ played a song that fit the beat for the line dance we had learned, so everybody got out and tried to remember all the steps we had just learned.

Shortly after that, my blonde friend had to go. We exchanged phone numbers in the hopes of meeting up at the bar more often, at least for Tuesday night line dance lessons, and maybe Saturday nights. I had made a few bar friends so many years ago, and they took me under their wing, so it is really nice to return the favor to somebody. Maybe we will become real friends one day.

Anyway, I am not exaggerating when I tell you that less than 5 minutes after she left, a good looking guy came over and asked me to dance. Really?! Dancing with a guy was the last thing on my mind, but needless to say, I was THRILLED!

Come to find out, he's from South Dakota, but he's in town visiting his sister who is in the hospital. He and two of his brothers and one of their cousins were all at the bar celebrating Mardi Gras. I invited them to join my table, and next thing I knew, a few other girls joined into the group as well. It seemed that at least one of the girls knew the boys - through their sister maybe? I don't know.

What I DO know is that I danced at least once with each guy, and several times with the first guy. None of them were great at the two-step or triple-step, but two of them were REALLY good at swing, which is one of my weak points. But we could laugh when I messed up, and the guys were impressed at how well I did manage to keep up.

Suddenly, I felt like this beautiful, young, single, available, DESIRABLE girl. I wasn't great at the small talk, though. I didn't really bring that version of myself with me; I didn't realize I would need social flirt Jennifer. All of the guys were ranchers or farmers, so I couldn't go on and on about "Tell me what you do for a living," so I ran out of topics.

Still, my lack of conversational skills did not stop the guys from asking me to dance.

The bar wound up closing at 11, and we all went our separate ways. I will probably never see any of them again, as 3 of the 4 were headed back to South Dakota in the morning, and that is OK. The self confidence, self esteem, and all-around happiness I found tonight is irreplaceable.

This also ties in to how I felt at the Tango lesson - a blog post I have written but have not published yet. In time, I will publish that and link to it here.

Anyway, here I am, finding myself on a dance floor again. Not only do I love to dance, I love who I am when I am on the dance floor. I feel like I glow from the inside. I even have a tattoo to remind me how much I love to dance - and yet I let dancing slip away from me for so many years.

I have a fair amount of hope that I will meet my future husband on a dance floor. That's partly because I love who I am on a dance floor, and partly because I would love to spend the rest of my life with a man who at least appreciates, if not shares, my passion for dancing.

So the connection between discovering myself 9 years ago and tonight in the exact same bar is what caused me to laugh while driving me home. It really is funny how life works sometimes. I was just looking to get some exercise by dancing, and I got so much more than that.

:-)

Before and After Pics 2/10/13

2013-02-10T18:25:00.003-07:00

I've been remiss in posting this week, and I'm exhausted, so here are some self-explanatory before and after pictures.

Masquerade/Social Skills

2013-02-03T21:55:00.001-07:00

For a variety of reasons, I have not written much about my personal life for the last few months, despite the byline of this blog saying I write about "life in general." I've decided to change that, at least temporarily. I'll bring back the dog pics soon, but I do have one or two personal blog posts that I want to write now.

I went to a Venetian-style Carnivale Masquerade last night.

OK, it wasn't quite as cool as the one from "Phantom of the Opera," but it was fun in its own right. I wasn't the social butterfly I wanted to be, but it occurred to me that social skills are something that need to be acquired and practiced - I can't go from being a wallflower for 30 years to the Belle of the Ball overnight.

So this got me thinking about my social skills and social life (or lack thereof).

I've always been terribly shy. I never had much self esteem, due mostly to my weight. I went from a girls' size 14 to a misses' size 14 in the space of a year when I was about 13. A shy elementary school kid with few friends became a fat teenager and settled into the life of a wallflower.

I did have a few good friends in high school, some of whom I am still friends with today, but I never went on a date, never went to Prom, never kissed a boy (more on this topic later).

When I was about 22, I started learning how to do Country dancing at a local bar. I could (and still can) two-step, triple-step, triple-two step, waltz, and line dance, and I actually got pretty good. I developed a bit of confidence about my dancing, but being overweight, I was always much too shy to ask any guys to dance; I mostly stood near the dance floor and hoped somebody would ask me to dance.

OK, let's fast forward through my 20s a bit. I was in an on-again-off-again relationship with a guy for several years, due in large part to the fact that I am bipolar but hadn't been diagnosed yet. I put on about 50 pounds, lost even more self esteem, and, the last guy I was intimate with, over a year and a half ago, had to stop halfway through the first time to run to the bathroom and throw up because he was so put off by my weight. Why I decided to give him another chance is beyond me. I'm just glad I got tired of him within a few weeks.

Needless to say, this all messed up my self esteem even worse. I also spent the better part of 2 or 3 years in a clinical depression. I stopped dancing and doing other things that I enjoy. I became a hermit and avoided other people, eventually losing many of the social skills I ever had to begin with.

Last fall, I finally got my meds completely straightened out and started feeling better than I had in a long time. I joined Weight Watchers and a gym, and I've lost almost 40 pounds in about 4 months. So now I have some self esteem to go out and start doing stuff.

A few weeks ago, somebody reminded me about meetup.com, so I decided to hop on and see if there were any meetups that interested me. That night, I found a meetup group for people who are interested in other countries, cultures, languages, etc. That sounds right up my alley! The very next night they were doing a beginner tango lesson, and I decided to go. I wrote about that here.

This same group put on a Masquerade last night, and I thought it would be a lot of fun, so I decided to go. I am going to put a pic of me in my dress and mask at the end of this blog post, but to break up the text, here's a picture of the shoes I found. I hardly ever wear heels, and the stilettos I wore to the tango lesson and my dad's wedding tore up my feet, so I needed something with a shorter heel that would stay on my feet and match my dress. These fit the bill better than I expected:

Anyway, for some reason I wasn't feeling as confident at the Masquerade last night as I was at the tango lesson a few weeks ago. I thought the mask would somehow make me less nervous, but I think the fact that everybody was wearing masks and I could hardly pick out the few people I did actually know unsettled me a little bit.

I got there early, of course, and there were only a dozen or so people spread over 6 tables and a bunch of chairs. I surveyed the room. I was tempted to go sit in a chair by the wall all by myself, since that is what the wallflower in me was screaming for, but I decided to break out of my comfort zone and sit at a table with (probably) strangers. Again, if I knew any of these people, I was hard pressed to recognize them. I settled on a table with two women who weren't talking to each other - obviously strangers, which made me feel more comfortable than sitting at a table with best friends who would talk to each other all night and ignore me.

One lady moved here from France over 20 years ago, and the other came from Moldova 14 years ago, so that was really neat for me to meet people from other countries. Unfortunately, I have a hard time hearing and understanding people in those types of loud events, and their accents made that even harder. They were as quiet as me, anyway, so we didn't talk much, but at least I had people to sit with and didn't spend the entire night alone on a chair.

I spent the next hour or so wishing the music was more dance-able (it got more and more dance-able as the night went on, but it started off with a lot of slow Italian, Spanish, and French ballads that weren't good for much apart from Ballroom dancing and the occasional tango - which I couldn't do without a partner anyway) and eyeing this guy across the room. I couldn't quite tell if he was good-looking or not, but except for a middle-aged lady who kept flitting to and from the table he was sitting at, he spent a lot of time alone. Eventually he got up from the table and stood against the wall. It took a few songs, but eventually I got up the nerve to go talk to him.

I went up to him and made some joke about him holding up the wall, and he smiled and thanked me for coming over, and we struck up a conversation. It didn't take long for me to realize -

SON OF A -----! He's gay!

PLEASE don't misunderstand me. I'm not homophobic, far from it. I have gay family members and I was very good friends with a gay guy for several years (why "was" and not "am"? Never work for friends or family members).

Let me explain why I was upset.

I have THE WORST gaydar on the planet. Always have, probably always will. It's set on reverse or something, I don't know. Pretty much every guy I had a crush on in high school turned out to be gay. Almost EVERY. SINGLE. DANG. ONE. Even in college I had a knack for pining after the gay guys. And that friend I was talking about? I had a crush on him for years. In all honesty, I was glad the reason he didn't like me as more than a friend was only because I was a woman and not because there was anything wrong with me.

Almost invariably, if I can comfortably talk to a guy, they turn out to be gay. Maybe subconsciously I know how flustered I get when talking to straight guys and find the gay ones to save some semblance of decorum?

I don't have a clue. All I know is that my reverse gaydar was in full force last night, and it was frustrating. It just makes it THAT much harder for me to find a boyfriend.

Anyway, the music had picked up a little bit, and he asked me to dance.

Now, I love to dance when I have actual steps to do. Two-step, line dance, tango, whatever - give me dance steps and/or a guy with a strong lead, and I'm a pretty good dancer. But that whole standing around swinging your arms and hips and trying to vaguely move to the music? Yeah, not my thing. Of course, for once, I wasn't going to let that stop me. I'm wearing a mask, I can make an a-- out of myself on the dance floor.

So then the guy starts dancing and...Let's just say I suddenly felt much less self-conscious about my own dancing!

Cut to...I see the guy I gave my phone number to at the tango lesson who never called me. He's dancing with the Moldovan.

Crap.

I don't blame him for not calling me. I'm actually totally cool with it - I was WAY more bold than usual that night, and he didn't actually ask for my number, I offered it. Anyway, him talking to me as much as he did that night totally made my evening, and I will always be grateful to him for that.

But.

Here's where I started wondering what to do, how to act, and what he might be thinking about me. It crossed my mind to go up to him and make some joke and try again to flirt with him, but luckily I realized that would be a bad idea. I don't want to make him uncomfortable and feel bad for not calling me.

For a while I thought, hm, maybe he doesn't see me. Maybe if I get close enough to him he'll recognize me even with a mask on. Maybe he'll come talk to me? But I can't be obvious about it. So I just did things like walk across the room near where he was dancing a few times, like to the bathroom and for water.

Eventually I realized that he was definitely not going to come talk to me, so now I need to make sure he doesn't think I'm stalking him. Now I need to make it a point to not get too close to him so that I don't make him uncomfortable. I tried to ignore him the best I could, but you know how that goes. Actually, when I did take my mind off of his location, that's when I would go get water and he would be standing next to the water table chatting up some girl or another.

DANGIT!

Needless to say, this messed up my mojo a bit last night.

I did still get to dance with several guys throughout the night, so that was pretty cool. And the lady who organized the whole event had taken suggestions from everybody on any international songs they wanted, and she played a couple of the Bollywood songs I recommended, so that was awesome! You should have seen the look on this guy's face (even with a mask he managed to wear a quizzical expression) when he saw me singing along!

Anyway, I was a little more shy than I would have liked, and first I was upset with myself for not dancing and chatting more, but then I cut myself some slack and realized that this whole thing was WAY outside my normal comfort zone, and in context, I actually did a really good job (for me).

I left shortly after midnight because I had to work this morning. (Side note - I've never seen so many taxis in my metropolitan area before - they must make all their money Friday and Saturday nights.)

I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, but it was totally worth it, and I look forward to stretching my social skills even further in the future.

Oh, and here's the pic of me in my dress and mask - with measures to further protect my anonymity. ;-)

It looks like I'm throwing a gang symbol or something, but I actually wanted to cover up the phone in my hand that I was using to take a picture.

OK, I guess that's it for tonight. The tango lesson a few weeks ago was a completely different experience as far as my social skills, so hopefully I will have a chance to write about that in the next couple of days.

Hand Scissoring

2013-02-01T17:57:00.001-07:00

This is a vast generalization, but it seems to me that (in my corner of the world, at least) hand scissoring dogs without first using a blade or snap-on comb to set the length is a dying art. It certainly isn't something I was ever taught. The longest comb I had when I first started grooming was about 2 inches, and as far as I knew, there was no way to do any length longer that and shorter than full coat, except maybe to trim the belly and legs but leave the body long. I didn't know anybody who hand-scissored. And then the new metal snap-on combs came out, and the standard went down to all haircuts being an inch or less.

Then I read this blog post: http://petgroomingthegoodthebadthefurry.blogspot.com/2012/06/hand-scissoring.html I love this blog and read it regularly. After reading this post, I decided to try to do some full-body hand scissors of my own. This blog post was written almost 8 months ago, so it has clearly taken a long time for me to find dogs with the right kind of cut and hair to practice on, but I think I have finally perfected my technique well enough to spotlight some before and after pictures.

Let's start with today and work backwards. This Cavachon was my first dog of the day today; a new client. She wasn't happy with the last groom, mostly because they took his face too short. She just wanted about a quarter of an inch taken off his body. Here is how he looked before the bath.

Sure, I could have used a snap-on comb to set the length on his haircut first, but I decided to just scissor it and see how that went. Ironically, I had a comb length in mind as I was scissoring him, and when I was done, I checked the finished length with that comb, and it was almost dead on! Anyway, here is the final result. I have to say, this is easily the best hand scissoring I've ever done on an entire dog.

Being a Cavachon, his hair was rather wavy with a lot of cow licks. Snap-on combs can't factor in cow licks (the cut winds up looking choppy), but hand scissoring can. I started as a bather almost 9 years ago and started doing cuts almost 8 years ago - I believe it's never too late to learn something new, and I definitely want to always improve my grooming skills.

I also did this Wheaten today. She is easily my favorite Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier to groom - she has the best personality! Her hair isn't that great, but at least it has gotten impressively long - when I first started grooming her, she had really bad allergies which were causing bald spots, hot spots, and thin patches and what hair there was was so fine that it matted really easily. Here she is before the bath - what a mess!

Usually most of the curl and most of the mats come out with the bath and blow dry. You can see here that this wasn't really the case today...

Here she is all brushed out - which took forever, unfortunately.

That's a pretty striking difference in coat texture from before the bath.

Anyway, her owner wanted about 1/4-1/2" off all over - basically the dog equivalent of telling your hair dresser just to take off your split ends. Her hair is much too long for a snap-on comb, so I had to scissor her whether I liked it or not.

Isn't she sweet? Side note - you can see here that she gets a Teddy Bear Head rather than the traditional Wheaten Head. I hardly do any actual Wheaten heads these days. This isn't my choice, I just don't have any customers who like that look.

And just to show you that I'm not perfect, here is a dog I did a few days ago. I think he was a Shihchon. Here he is before the bath - what a mess!!!

Luckily he only had a few mats under all of that hair. Here he is after the bath and all brushed out but before the haircut.

They wanted less than half of his length taken off, which would have been longer than my longest comb, so I had to hand scissor him. He was only scheduled for an hour and a half but wound up taking two hours - and I really feel like I should have spent a little more time polishing him up, but I had a customer who had been waiting on me to finish him up so I could start on her dog. Yeah, I would definitely like to go back in time to do some polishing, but I wanted to be fair and show you the not-so-good with the good (I could just be picky, the owner did seem pleased with the groom).

Not my best groom every, but considering this isn't something I was really even trained for, I guess I'll take it. Hopefully they will come back again and I will have enough time to polish him up next time.

OK, last one. Here is a cute Toy Poodle puppy I did a couple of months ago. It was his first haircut, and they just wanted a light trim all over. Here he is before the bath.

There isn't a whole lot I can do about tear stains aside from shave them out, but his hair was so fine that his actual skin was stained and there wasn't much of anything I could do about it. Anyway, isn't he precious?

Most of the groomers I know now and have known in the past don't/won't/can't do this kind of hand scissoring, so I take particular pride in the fact that this is something I decided to tackle and perfect. Hopefully the word will get out that there IS a groomer out there doing cuts longer than an inch!

A Pair of Poodles

2013-01-28T08:00:00.002-07:00

The other day, I got to groom two Poodles from the same family. One was an adult Toy Poodle, and the other was a 5-month-old Standard Poodle puppy. They were quite an interesting pair! Anyway, I took a lot of photos to give you a sense of the process I go through when grooming Poodles.

Here is the before picture of the Toy Poodle. She's all nice and curly and straggly, and when dogs look like this, you wonder how much of the curl will come out with the bath and blow dry and how much will be matting left over after the dryer.

Here she is after the bath and blow dry. See how her front legs and body are now fluffy, but her back leg still looks scraggly? Those are pin mats that I will need to brush out. Not fun, but they aren't bad enough mats to require shaving. Brushing those legs was a little time consuming, but it wasn't very hard on the dog; I was very gentle.

This is her all brushed out and with her feet and face shaved, but no haircut on her body yet. All groomers have a different order that they do things in; some groomers may do the feet and face very first or very last, for example. This is just my order.

I do what is called a Town and Country (or sometimes called a Lamb) clip on her. In this picture, I have cut the hair on her body but not her legs yet. This gives you some sense of the pattern involved.

Next I take her legs a little bit shorter. I haven't yet blended the pattern or trimmed around her feet, I've just taken the length of her legs down.

Lastly, I neaten up her legs and cut her topknot. This is the final product.

Isn't she cute? She took me a solid hour and a half from start to finish.

Here's the Standard Poodle puppy. 5 months old. Isn't he huge?

Just in case you can't tell exactly how big he is, here he is next to his Toy Poodle sister.

FIVE...MONTHS...OLD...

This guy is going to be ENORMOUS.

Anyway, that is how he looked when he first came in. They wanted him to get a full haircut for the very first time. Since he had a TON of hair to wash and dry, I quickly shaved his face and feet before the bath so that I would have less hair to wash and dry, especially since most dogs don't like having their faces dried. I wasn't going for perfect here; I just wanted to get some hair off before the bath.

Here he is after the bath. I've already gone back and fixed his face and his feet and brushed him out, but I haven't cut any of the hair on his body yet.

And yes, this guy was surprisingly mellow for such a young puppy. They started bringing him in November when he was 3 months old and have brought him once a month since then - the change in him from that first groom to now is AMAZING - he is so much calmer and relaxed now that he knows the whole process and has gotten used to me. That is why it is SO important to start puppies of any breed as young as possible, so that they can get used to everything before getting a full haircut.

Anyway, they wanted a little bit of length taken off, but not too much. They wanted a longer cut than any of my guard combs would provide, so I had to hand-scissor his entire body. Here's a picture of how scraggly his hair was before the cut.

Here is how that same spot on his back looked after I scissored all the straggly pieces off.

I have to say, I'm rather impressed with how my hand scissoring has improved over the last six months or so.

Here's the final product. He looks so grown up now!

He is also clearly a Poodle now, where before he looked an awful lot like a Doodle. This guy took me a shade over two hours from start to finish.

If anybody was wondering where else I do things in my process, I cut the nails very first thing after the bath on all dogs (unless they HATE it, in which case I leave it for last - or do it before the bath if they like to pee and/or poop when they get their nails cut), and if the dog needs its pads shaved, I do that right after the toenails. I then proceed to shave the sanitary areas, and most of the time I will go shave the corners of the eyes next. From there I work on the body, legs, then head. I clean or pluck the ears very last thing, then add perfume and a bandanna or bows.

I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into how one groomer does Poodles!

Dirtiest Dog Ever?

2013-01-24T18:11:00.000-07:00

Listen to the video clip while looking at the following pictures for added amusement ;-)

(The music starts at 0:15, don't cheat and look ahead - if you time it right, this is awesome, I promise!)

This may not be the dirtiest dog I have ever groomed, but he is certainly in the top 5*. I work in a major metropolitan area - when I worked in the outlying suburbs, we would get the occasional farm dog, but now that I work closer to the city, farm dogs are few and far between. This guy had just been at the dog park.

Obviously.

How long do you suppose it took me to wash all that mud out of his hair?

It took 3 scrubs and 50 minutes just to wash him.

Then it took another hour to dry him (we groom all dogs straight through at my shop, so kennel drying was not an option).

The owner was almost 10 minutes late for her appointment, so that means I didn't even start his haircut until he had been there for two hours already - and he was only scheduled for a 2-hour appointment!!! Luckily he was my last dog of the day and I had an extra hour to work until close.

Because who doesn't love working more than an hour later than expected?

Here he is clean and a little bit roughed in. Just in case you weren't sure how dirty he was, go back and look at the original picture and compare the color of his non-muddy fur to the color of his actually clean fur.

I had to take his entire stomach down to a little less than half an inch.

Because of course he couldn't just be filthy, he had to be matted, as well.

I had to take his neck down to 1/4 inch.

The owner had wanted me to only take about half the length off his body (knowing his neck and stomach would be shorter), but his body was a little bit matted, also. Having spent two hours just washing and drying this dog, I was not about to spend half an hour dematting so that he could look ridiculous with a banded neck and false skirt and fluffy body.

So I used my longest blade, 5/8", all over his body. He still had a little fluff, he wasn't naked, and it blended well into the short spots.

He may not be as fluffy as his mom wanted, but I think he turned out darned cute, considering what I had to work with. He hadn't been in for almost 3 months.

One more time, just to make it easy on you, here is the before and after side by side.

Yes, that's the same dog.

And you probably weren't asking yourself, but just in case you were wondering what the tub looked like afterwards...

...And that's after I had cleaned the half of the tub nearest the drain.

Still think dog groomers have an amazing job where we get to play with puppies all day?

*I wrote this post yesterday but didn't post it. Today it occurred to me that I have done Labs and Goldens that were that muddy, but this Doodle was probably the hairiest muddy dog I have ever seen.