Our puppies will be a year old in something like two weeks and they are such different creatures from when we first met them eight months ago. I’d guess both are as big as they will get but they are still small dogs. Maromi always looks a lot bigger than he is because he is a long-haired little guy. His fur has been quite a trial with regard to grooming. It was easy to get him to sit to be brushed when he was smaller. Now he gets impatient and I often don’t manage to get him completely brushed. He turned into quite a fluff ball as he grew bigger. But any time we missed a day of brushing, more and more of his fur would get matted and it became more of an ordeal for him.

He was already a mess by the time I went in for my surgery almost three weeks ago. The problem was stuff would get stuck on the underside of him and he wouldn’t tolerate me messing with that area for long and it got worse. Since my surgery I haven’t worked on him all that much and any progress got swallowed up with more mess. A few nights ago he started squealing his high-pitched cry for hurt and came flying to me. He’d been outside and I thought something must have hurt him out there. The Scientist, who’d gone to bed, came rushing out to help out with him. He checked the little guy all over and couldn’t find the problem. It just seemed to be related to his ear. He got Maromi to calm down and with Game Fanatic’s help, took him to the after hours animal hospital. Turns out our little boy had a rye seed stuck in his ear and it wasn’t too hard to get it out. But his fur was in such bad shape that it was suggested we have him clipped and start over with the grooming.

I did work on him a bit over the next day or two and removed lots of knots and fur but it was such an endless job that it would be torture to keep working on him for too long.

Yesterday, the Scientist found a local groomer and took him to be clipped. He’s come back looking nothing like our scruffy little friend and looks a bit scrawny. He’s also feeling a bit cool without his long coat so we will have to break down and buy something for him soon. I never thought we’d be spending money on a groomer or a coat when we planned to have dogs. But here we are. We also didn’t expect to have a long-haired dog requiring massive amounts of grooming. I guess I can understand why so much dog advice recommends the clipping being started from a young age too. Maromi wasn’t the most cooperative of clients but the groomer was patient and completed the job. The good part is he now feels so soft and clean after being a mess for weeks now. And it should be a lot easier keeping him cleaned up now that we are starting anew.

The Scientist also took Fluttershy along to get her nails clipped. I gave up trying to cut them months ago after she became quite aggressive with each attempt. I thought we’d have to have her sedated to get the job done but it seems the groomer had no trouble with her. When she came home she acted as though she’d been traumatised for the rest of the day, but today she has settled down and has become springier with each step. I think it must feel good to be rid of the long nails, except when she is jumping on things where she tends to dig in with her claws. So it seems we might have a regular expenditure on some of the puppies’ grooming as it’s easier than leaving it undone.