This guy is about 10 years old and came to me for a consult and then groom to know what to do with his coat.  His dad had been shaving him in the summers to try and help him stay cool, and someone had said that brushing him out would be too stressful for him because of his age.

The truth is shaving a double coated breed (Husky's, Pomeranian's, Samoyed's, etc) does not actually help them stay cooler in the heat. 

Here is a quick explanation as to why.  A double coat means there are two layers of hair serving two different purposes.  The outer layer is a coarse hair called the 'guard coat' because it protects the dog against the elements, snow, rain, sun, bugs trying to bite.  The second layer is the soft crimpy undercoat that insulates the dog when the weather is cool.  Removing the undercoat by brushing helps air to flow through the coat under the guard hair.  This is the best way to keep your dog cool. Remember, dogs do not sweat through their skin like humans do, their cooling system is different.  Their skin also has a lot less layers (thinner skin) than us and the sun can burn them more easily.  So shaving the guard hair will leave the dog exposed and take away it's natural protection from overheating.

What I like to do for some dogs is to just shave a 'tunnel' down their belly, so that when they lie down on a cold surface they can keep their organs cool.  It is not exposed to the sun so the skin is not at risk of sunburn. 

From the side you can't even see that there is a shaved area underneath.

Above: Before brushing the coat, after tunnelling the belly

Below: After brushing the coat :)

And here he is, all done!  I gave him a medium length tidy, not too short, but enough off to help keep him mat free.

Aussie's can end up with really long pants, but this guy gets out in the forest and swims a lot, so I tidied him up quite a bit.  Gotta love an Aussie bum :D

That feels better!  All done, no stress, no pain, cooler without the packed undercoat and ready to play!

As for grooming older dogs, I think it is always best to keep your elderly dog groomed.  Even if it means they don't look as pretty or perfect as they did when they were younger, if they are too old to stand or get cranky and stressed in their old age.  They will always feel better after being bathed and brushed and pampered.

Happy Tails!

Miriam

I had the utmost pleasure of grooming Zivah today.  The beautiful retired Samoyed show dog who belongs to the lovely and talented Rachel Barkman, who does dog photography.  She does human photography as well, which I must say I quite like and you can go check out her website here: Rachel Barkman Photography. 

Rachel gave me a mini session with Yukon and Akira before Zivah's grooming this morning, (even threw one of 'Puppy" in there), just a quick 30 minutes, and look what she gave me, priceless treasures.

There are a lot of photographers out there, and I have a very critical eye when it comes to photos.  I have to say, she is really good!  A great photo captures light, personality, composition, balance and I'm sure other and more technical stuff that I don't know about, but put it all together right and you get a magical moment that you just want to keep looking at.  It is art. That is a good photo.  That is what I see in Rachel's photos.  So thank you Rachel, you made me very happy today!

Happy Tails!!

At the drive in!  We haven't been on a movie date together in.....well a long time.  It is great fun, especially for Puppy, who stayed up the whole time until 2 in the morning!

They were playing 'The Heat', a show about two women officers, one an FBI agent and the other a detective, and oh I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.  I loved it.

The second movie was 'Wolverine'.  It's set in Japan, and I always love movies set in Japan.  I have been studying Japanese for the past five years, and even though I still can't speak it, or understand most of it, it has stopped being a 'foriegn' language to me.  My vocabulary is just very small.

You know the classic train fight scene in movies?  You know the one, where the good guy fights the bad guy on the roof of a moving train?  Well this movie steps it up a notch, they are on the roof of a bullet train!  The scene was really well done, quite entertaining.

Yukon is still growing, he is just almost 7 months old, and he doesn't realize he's not still the tiny puppy that he used to be.  He is always climbing up in the front and onto our laps!  So we have a nice roomy mini-van, and here we have two adults, a toddler, one small dog and one fairly larger dog all watching the movie from the front seats :D  Happy Tails!

Really I wish I had four arms sometimes, it would have been 'handy', (okay *groan*) today for picture taking.  Then you could have seen the exemplary groomer's dog having a bath and being blow dried. (eye roll, read sarcasm)

I really can't hold it against him, he is just a baby still, and it's my fault for not giving him a bath in the last... I can't remember when.

The water was scary, the yipping and howling told.  The table was impending doom, said the shaky legs, and the dryer was for sure mother's evil side coming to get him.  My heart went out to him, and lots of reassuring words, hugs, kisses, cuddles, and more kisses had him sitting still by the end of it and he even let me blow dry his ears!  This kind of accomplishment always makes me soo happy.  I really didn't need to dry him, the weather has been so hot, but it was a matter of getting him used to the noise and a bit of an exercise in trust.

When I say dogs are family members and I treat all dogs as if they were my own, this is what I mean.  I would lavish as much patience, love and reassurance to any and every dog on my table. I am just as proud and happy when I see the dog settling down and trusting me, allowing me to do things like blow dry ears, use clippers on their face and scissor in front of their eyes.

These truly are Happy Tails!