Flying Dog Hair and Other Tales of Horror

Imagine, if you will, a fluffy Shih Tzu with a deceptively cute face. Imagine also that in the grief of having lost a beloved four-legged member of the family, you decide to adopt another canine to share love and life with. In fact, you go one step further and adopt the fluffy Shih Tzu's bosom buddy at the rescue group, a Lhasa Apso. The Lhasa was severely abused, so you know to be calm and gentle around him; the Shih Tzu seems calm to the point of lethargy. She has pneumonia you soon realize. Three vet trips later, she's cured and is ready to show you her true personality. And thus we realized that demon spawn in dog suits had managed to insinuate themselves into our home.

Even with my experience with animals of all kinds, I felt an expert was necessary to sort out the myriad behavior problems these two beasties managed to bundle into their little bodies. We hired an animal behaviorist/trainer to work with us and then spent almost 8 months undoing the trauma of that. And now, 9 years later, we STILL have 2 unruly dogs that seduce people with cuteness and drive us to distraction. Today was no different.

We try to keep up with their grooming at home because the idea of a lawsuit from a professional groomer doesn't appeal. So today was the foray into Phase 1 of the let's-get-the-worst-of-the-muck-and-matted-hair-off process. This involves taking one reluctant critter to the outdoor sink area and hoping you both come back alive. My little ones have absolutely mastered the art of passive resistance. Gandhi, if he were still around, could take lessons from them. The first maneuver is to lie down like a boulder and not budge. This doesn't have quite the effect they desire in that you can still get to trim the face, neck and ears and the top. So far so good. There is squirming, sure, but manageable.  But now comes the hard part. You need to get the hind end. You coax her up. You start to lift the tail. The bottom drops to the table. She does a double twist which somehow has the wrong end in your direction. How did that even happen? You try to roll her over. Again a double twist and she's flat on the table again. Out come the cookies to cajole her into cooperating. She snags the cookie and wiggles out of position before you can even get the scissors ready. This goes on for about 10 minutes with a sneak snip here and there, until the big handsome Akita (whom you've met), comes bounding out to tell some hapless dog off for having the temerity to pass by his yard. Since Ms. Shih Tzu is the big guy's sworn enemy, she takes umbrage and immediately and suicidally wants to jump from the high sink and go after him. Meanwhile, hair is flying, scissors go skittering so you can grab her from her own foolhardiness, and you realize the better part of valor is to call it quits for now. Round 2 will have to wait until after lunch and a nap.