Tag: grooming

The dog’s a cut above

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

Cubby the dog got a haircut the other day. Told to shave him short, the groomers had a field day. Short. Sure!

Three days ago Cubby was a walking haystack, a fluffy-cheeked Ewok, one of those stray dogs that takes gardening shears and chainsaws to clean up. The goofy part-Schnauzer mutt, a bounding gray Germanic furball, was ready for a summer trim.

And there you go.

Cubby came trotting out from the grooming, mildly disoriented, half-damp, and … ha! What do we have here, little rat-dog creature? Oh, yes. Short. Short. His curls are gone and swaths of his torso are pink, so shorn is the fur. He’s a baby chick, a Peeps.

And how we’re having fun with it. (Sorry, Cubs.)

A friend was visibly shocked by Cubby’s new haircut. “Cubby! You shrunk! You’re bald!,” she gasped. I told her that he caught on fire. She almost cried. 

Someone long-distance asked what the little guy looked like. My brother aptly put it, “Imagine a sausage, a scrotum, a seal and an otter mixed together.”

At least for me, haircuts are traumatic events, so I feel for the fella. To his credit, Cubby hardly seems to notice. Occasionally he’ll scratch or furiously lick those pink areas, but otherwise he seems to think he’s quite the catch, thin and svelte and groovy.

And when I give him a fair assessment, I have to nod and say, “Yep.”

Cubby pre-cut
Cubby shorn

Tale (tail?) of a hirsute hound

~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

Cubby the wonder dog has gone a very long time without a good, healthy grooming. His face is downright Ewokian, that wet button nose struggling to peek out from the furry foliage. His brows are thick, heavy, senatorial. His body would make Bigfoot blush. Such inordinate overgrowth is witnessed in only the most luxuriant jungle weaves and tangles, invoking machetes, flamethrowers and scythes fit for Death himself. 

Cubby, we submit, needs a haircut.

He knows it, we know it. Supercuts knows it. As does the kid down the block who mows the neighbor’s lawn for five bucks.

Seriously, clippers and razors should be at the ready. Cubby fears and loathes the grooming ordeal — sedatives required — and we sympathize. And so we let him go, and grow. But it’s in his best interest to be shorn, for comfort, hygiene, and to not look like David Letterman. 

Right now, three months after the photo below was taken, Cubby’s corkscrewy fur looks like swirling oceans of gray Reddi-wip, curling waves lurking with mythical sea monsters. If you think he looks lush here, you should see him now. To namecheck another “Star Wars” critter, he’s wildly Chewbaccian. I live with a barking, carpet-staining Wookiee. 

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Then again, here’s what he looks like after a spanking professional shearing. Such grooming makes him appear bald and sprightly, thinner, a bit rat-like, though retaining that preposterous Spaghetti-O tail (which I adore). Gone are the Austro-Hungarian mustache and frowzy Haight-Ashbury beard. (Gone too is that panting smile, curiously.)

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All of which is to say: 1. A barbershop chair awaits Cubby’s fuzzy tush. 2. Call it a springtime trim, ripe for warmer days. 3. Wanted: Dog groomer who can handle a hirsute hound that’s neurotic, nervous and Xanax-popping, and may require a John Deere to cut mighty scrubland. We exaggerate, a little.