Well, it is another month and I had to groom the dogs yet again. One of these days I may learn and not get dogs that have hair that will grow forever. Just like people, Yorke's do not have fur that grows to a certain length and stops. No, they have hair that will grow, and grow, and grow.Since they are dogs, and you can't very easily pull their hair back into one ponytail, you either let the hair grow and have the ritual combing several times a day, or you are like me, you cut their hair short. Part of the reason I keep their hair short is that they play so much, their hair tangles like there is no tomorrow. Also, when they go outside to play, well, if the hair is remotely long, everything that is not glued to the ground, ends up getting caught in their hair. Lastly, in Arizona, it gets hot this time of year, and if you don't like running around with long hair, how do you think the dogs feel?
Anyway, since I have been grooming the dogs for a year now, you would think I have the hang of it....NOT!!! Each time I get the grooming shears out, it is time for new experiences. It also really depends on the mood of the dogs at the time too. Like people, they do get cranky, or fidgety, or are just a plain pain in the butt... I have gotten used to the little guy being all wiggly, but he has now started a new trick, nipping at me or the clippers. He doesn't hurt when he nips, but I am positive that one of these times he is going to lose a piece of his nose or his tongue. The clippers aren't too bad, you really have to work to get cut with them, but when I am using those super sharp scissors...watch out. I can picture a piece of tongue just flapping around on the table if I am not very careful. As it is, I routinely nick myself when using the scissors. You would think that if you had your hand on the back of the scissors, and the other holding a hank of hair, that you wouldn't manage to cut yourself, but I do it...
Today, along with the "normal" adventures in dog grooming, I tried to trim the dogs nails. I have tried to trim their nails on several occasions in the past, but have had the excuse that the tools I had were not sufficient to do the job. Well, I asked a groomer what they used to trim nails. Most of the vets I have seen and some groomers use grinders to grind the dogs nails down. They say it is safer than using clippers, you tend to not cut into the quick of the dogs nail, and you won't crush the nail if the clippers are not sharp enough. I can use a grinder, I use a small grinder when doing some detail work in stone. How hard can it be to use a grinder on a dog's toenails? I have watched vets do it several times, it looks EASY....
HA!!! Let me tell you, grinding a dog's toenails is no walk in the park. Depending on the type of grinder you have, the experience can be daunting. I started with a battery powered grinder, it was given to me by a person who said it didn't work on big dog nails, but would surely work on the little Yorkie toe nails....NOT!!! I put fresh batteries in the grinder, got fresh sand paper for the grinder, and applied spinning grinder to dogs toenail. The grinder stopped. It didn't have the power to spin against the dog nail. Also factor in that the grinder made a funny noise which freaked out the dog. So, you have a wiggling dog who doesn't like the sound of the grinder, you have a newbie at the grinder, and then you have a grinder that won't grind... GREAT!!
Then I used my electric miniature grinder. This thing sets up one heck of a racket, so I ran it a bit while the dogs were around so they wouldn't freak too much when I tried to use it on them. OK, we are getting somewhere, the dogs didn't get too twitchy with the grinder, so up on the table one goes, I grab a foot, I grab the grinder, and.... foot won't come near grinder. We are talking about a 6 pound dog that has the pulling power of a MAC Truck. I did not expect so much pull from such a little package. Well, I readjusted my grip on the dog, grabbed the offending foot, and then tried to put toenail and grinder together. Next problem, dog tries to nip grinder. Not good for dog's nose...really not good for dog's nose...
OK, readjust once more, put dog in headlock, grab foot, grab grinder, apply grinder to foot. Once grinder touches to, foot twitches so bad, I can't keep the grinder against the toe. I now start grinding the top of my hand. Not what you want to do... but don't want the dog getting the upper hand, so I readjust once again, apply grinder to toenail and...another massive series of twitches, flinches, wiggles. The dog's head comes out of the headlock, starts nipping at the grinder, my hand is shaking so bad, I hit my fingers with the grinder and now I start tangling the dog's foot hair in the grinder (didn't pull anything or get it hopelessly tangled, but it was close).
Time to call in the reinforcements. Steve takes one attempt at trying to now hold a frantic 6-pound dog and says, what do I think I am doing? So, the best thing I did was to call our groomer and take the dogs over to her for their toenail trim. Walla...no more mangled fingers. What took me a half an hour to grind one toenail a little bit, it took her almost 5 minutes to get both dog's toenails down to the proper size.
All right, I am not ever going to be a good groomer. The only reason I picked up grooming our dogs was when we are on the road for longer than a month, I don't want to take them to just anyone to groom them. I have seen some pretty bad grooming jobs, and have heard of occasions where the dogs did get injured from mishandling by a groomer. I can cut our dog's hair, tolerably well and will stick to that when we are on the road. It is nice to be able to touch-up the dog's cut when the mood strikes, but it is SOOOOO nice to have a professional groomer take over the hard stuff. When we get back in town, I am going to give myself a major treat and have the dogs groomed all over by the groomer, not me... My version of a day at the spa...
Until tomorrow...
No comments:
Post a Comment