Shaving Is So Much Fun

Being a standard poodle is hard work. I believe it.

Not only does Gryphon have to eat, drink, poop, and sleep, he is forced to actually play with his human friends once in a while. He also sometimes has to go outside when it is raining, or just a bit wet, and that, my friends, is asking a lot of a poodle, who apparently is supposed to LOVE water.


Talk about pressure.



The worst part, if you asked Gryphon and if he could actually speak in human tongue instead of just saying "Roooo!", would be getting shaved. I know this to be true. It stresses the poor dog to no end. It takes him days to figure out what to do with his body, and his legs don't know which way is down, so half the time he can be found flailing about on the floor, all confused and not sure why things just don't feel right. He also runs around the house on three legs, with his fourth hind leg kind of scratching himself, kind of not, and simultaneously he nips at himself with his mouth. Then, sometimes he just falls over, like he loses his balance, and then chews himself some more before looking at us as if to say, "What the hell has happened to me?! Where is my body as I know it?!"

If you don't already know this, poodles don't grow fur, they grow hair kind of like humans do, but not really (except for the odd person I see on the street who could certainly pass for a poodle, and sometimes I look very much like one, especially in the morning after having used a lot of hairspray the day before). This hair poodles grow needs to be cut once in a while, or else it keeps growing, and gets matted because it just gets too unmanageable to be brushed any longer, and then the dog looks like a Rastafarian.

Getting poodles, especially standard poodles, groomed costs a pretty penny. And the groomer usually ends up shaving the beast because we always wait a little too long to get him groomed, and his hair is too tangled up like fishing line, and it would just hurt him too much to comb all that out and then cut it properly. So, because we are cheap and irresponsible poodle owners, we decided to try and shave Gryphon ourselves, reasoning that not only would we save tons of bucks in the process, but Gryphon would not be as stressed out since he would not be subject to a shaver in a stranger's hands.


So we bought ourselves a special dog shaving grooming kit, and shaved the poor bugger ourselves. We are far from experts in the field of dog grooming, I will be the first to admit. But really, who cares what the dog looks like? He surely doesn't. What really matters is his well-being, and the fun we have shaving him and making fun of the way he looks for weeks afterward. And really, how difficult can shaving a dog be?


Within a month or so, Gryphon starts looking like a dog again, instead of a very skinny, skittish weevil with legs ten times longer and skinnier than they should be.


But until that time, he wears shorts, so that he doesn't chew his butt to pieces. He likes doing that when he's been shaved. Chew himself. It's as if he suddenly realizes he has a butt, and boy, what fun I can have with this body part that doesn't seem to be part of me but, hey, look at that! I can chew it, and sometimes it speaks to me!

Comments

I know this is an old post, but I'm back-reading! We used to have an airedale, and they have hair very similar to a poodle. I shaved her myself, and it could actually take a couple of hours, so I always dreaded it. I love how you describe it, and it's very accurate! The vet I used to work for had a standard poodle who was ball obsessed and super hyperactive, and when he brought him to work, which was every day, he(the dog) could.not.sit.still for more than a few seconds at a time. Haven't seen how old Gryphon is, but I have a feeling they have a prolonged adolescence?

Popular posts from this blog

Gobble Gobble!

Just call me a dwarf

Gourmet Anyone?