The other day I let our small dog, Puddin’, outside to do his
‘business’ when he came upon an interesting aroma out on the
driveway.
The other day I let our small dog, Puddin’, outside to do his ‘business’ when he came upon an interesting aroma out on the driveway. This could have been his own calling card or perhaps another wilder critter had passed this way. In either case, my stubborn Lhasa Apso was examining this find with great gusto and taking his sweet time about it.
“Puddin’,” I called – and yes, I know it’s a wacky name for a dog. I tried again because he hadn’t budged. “Come here, Puddin’. Puuuuudddin’ – Come on now, Puddin’….” Mind you, I was using my softest, most enticing voice because – let’s face it – a woman standing on the front porch in her bathrobe yelling “Puddin'” at the top of her lungs is either crazy or having one ferocious snack attack. It’s just not the best way to call attention to oneself.
I pulled out the big guns. “GOOD BOY, Puddin’! Come inside and get your COOKIE now! Puddin’? Come ON, Puddin’!!!”
“You should get a job with ‘The Dog Whisperer,'” my spouse noted, watching our four-legged child mosey about on the driveway. “You have such command over the dog.”
Ok, so Cesar Millan is not going to lose any sleep over this. But I am not bragging when I say that Cesar would be impressed with my dog grooming skills.
For the record, grooming my longhaired dog never made it to my bucket list because it is way harder than it looks. And it isn’t masochistic tendencies making me subject myself to this torment. Nope. Puddin’ has issues. Lots of issues but mainly with his eyes. Therefore, the loop that goes about the neck of a dog at a grooming salon is out. Puddin’ can’t even tolerate a leash – too risky for the glaucoma that plagues him following a rash of eye surgeries. So I inherited the task of tidying up the dog.
Now any fool knows that simply bathing a dog is easy. I mean, once you capture the dog that races to the far corners of the earth whenever he hears water running, the rest is a snap.
Right? So what if the little scrapper pancakes on the floor and digs the nails of all four paws into the carpeting when you try to pick him up? I mean, who has the bigger brain here?
But I was uneasy at the thought of trimming those flowing locks that make Lhasas resemble living dust mops. Those buzzy little clipper things are unnerving. Besides, I haven’t had the best luck with dogs and automated devices. Take for example the time I attempted to clean the teeth of our former Lhasa, Freddie.
The vet suggested I purchase one of those “water pick” type gizmos to reduce the plaque build-up on Freddie’s teeth. Well.
This sounds good in theory. In reality, all I can say is YOU try holding a small thrashing dog exerting roughly 97,000 pounds of force with one hand and with the other a fully loaded water pick as it gushes forth with the equivalent psi of a fire hose able to extinguish blazing infernos on the top floor of the Empire State Building. Yeah. Let’s see how YOU do!
Freddie was beyond furious. No way was I getting anywhere near his pearly whites with that spewing volcano of water, which was by now shooting its contents wildly over the entire bathroom.
Yes, after the Yellowstone-Geyser-Monsoon-in-the-Bathroom incident, I was reluctant to get into another battle of wills with a dog. That’s when our friends, Bud and Susan, offered to give me a grooming lesson.
Bud grooms all their Lhasa Apsos, and he’s darned good at it. So one sunny afternoon we headed over to Bud and Susan’s home down in Newport Beach for a hands-on demo.
And it would’ve been helpful, too, except that Susan and I rapidly retired to the patio with glasses of wine to discuss important world issues such as our granddaughters. As a result, I didn’t glean too much understanding of dog grooming, although I now know that Susan’s granddaughter’s next birthday party theme will definitely be ‘Pink Princesses.’
“That’s not how Bud does it,” my spouse advised approximately 673 times when I’d finally launched out on my maiden dog-grooming voyage. “Listen, buster,” I warned, brandishing my clippers at the man. “If you say that one more time I’m going to take these things to YOUR hair and believe me – it won’t be pretty!”
And the results of my first do-it-yourself grooming adventure? Well, a racing stripe now runs along Puddin’s right flank, a gift resulting from running the close-cutting clipper head a little too high on that side. But let’s just remember hair DOES grow back – and besides. It gives Puddin’ that rakish, STREAMLINED look that I find quite eye-catching. Yep. Works for me!
