Went Strolling Through the Park One Day

Posted on Nov 15 in Small Dog Groomingby Jeff K.Print

I’m pretty sure it was May when this happened. May. Isn’t that when the showers bring April flowers? No, it’s the other way around. April showers, May flowers. So I was strolling through the park one day, in the merry merry month of April. There was a dog involved in all this too; and now I’m sure it was April because it was raining.

Rain equals mud of course, and the dog was packing it on faster than a dog in mud, or is that a pig? A dog in pig? Doesn’t make sense. Never mind. Suffice to say, the dog was getting dirty.

By the time we got home, the mud had dried on the dog. I had a brainstorm, which is rare, so I circled the date on the calendar with a red marker. I took the dog to the basement, put her on an old packing box, opened and flattened—the box, not the dog. Using the slicker brush, I tried to rake as much of the dirt out of her coat as I could. This did two things. It left a heap of dirt crumbs on the floor because the flattened box was too small. It also made my dog miserable, which she indicated first by whining and then by snapping at the brush. I gave up, much to my dog’s relief
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Clearly, the best solution here was a bath, so I took one. I promised the dog she would go to her groomer for a bath by the end of the week. This was Sunday, but the dog didn’t know that. She did not protest and point to the calendar when seven days had passed from the point at which I had put the little red circle on the thing—the calendar, not the dog. She did not say anything when two weeks went by. She even withheld her opinion when April turned into May because she was too busy.

My dog had important dog work to do, such as rolling in the garden beds and eating my flowers, that bloomed in May, by the way. As the weeks passed, my dog looked more and more like a garden herself. Along with the dirt, there were twigs and pine needles and various seeds sown in her flanks. I am sure, given enough time, something would have bloomed in her coat.

Finally, I did what any responsible dog owner does. I took my dog to her groomer and said “Fix this.” My groomer was holding a tissue to her nose as she inspected my dog so I asked about her health. The groomer replied she felt fine.

“Oh, and one other thing” I said to her. “Please don’t shave her. My vet says the dog needs her long coat to protect her skin from the sun.”

At that point she indicated several large mats on my dog’s rump, chest and behind each leg. The hair was clumped together in plates as hard as Georgia clay kiln-dried by the summer sun. Further, these mats were knotted all the way to the skin.

“I really want to keep her coat full. You can just comb those mats out or use a special razor, but don’t shave her.” I said. The groomer said there was no way to get a comb through the mat. The only way to get rid of the mats was to get rid of the mats, and that meant shaving. I told her to just give my dog a bath and that would be enough.

Six and a half hours later, my groomer called me. “Your dog is ready.”

“Took a while to get to her, did it?”

“No,” she said, “I have been working on her since you dropped her off.”

When I picked my dog up, both my she and my groomer looked like they had been in a fight. The groomer’s arms were scratched. Her eyes were puffy and red. My dog looked at me as if to say “You idiot.”

It turns out that she did give my dog a bath, two baths actually. She had tugged and pulled with a razor-bladed comb for four hours, separating the matted hair several strands at a time. She had cried for a short while because she felt as though she were punishing my dog. Most of the matted hair had been resolved and the dog was clean, but the results were not worth it for my dog or her groomer.

* * *

Lessons learned:

1. Don’t wait too long to get the dog cleaned. If you cannot bath and thoroughly brush the dog yourself, get her to a professional.
2. Dirt plus hair oil plus infrequent brushing equals mats. Mats are like cemented hair. There is no magic that dissolves them or separates the hair involved. Unless the mats are very small and do not involve more than the outer fringe of the dog’s coat, they can only be removed.
3. If the groomer says it can’t be done, and you know you are dealing with a fair, experienced and knowledgeable groomer, then it cannot be done. When I asked that the groomer comb out the my dog’s mats, I wish my groomer had used the magic word “inhumane.” I would have paid attention.

* * *

Not too long ago, I was strolling through the park. I’m pretty sure it was April. It was raining. There was a lot of mud. The dog was with me. We stayed on the sidewalk.

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