Grooming, DIY Style

Raise your hand if you need a haircut.

Almost everyone does. And then there is the matter of hair coloring. But I won’t even get into that issue. You want more on that dilemma, ask the favorite woman in your life. But the haircut thing? We are all in this together.

Certainly in the great scheme of things, haircuts should be one of the least of our worries. Plenty of other, more pressing, even life-and-death issues to be concerned with these days. And in some way it feels silly to even bring up how badly we might need a trim.

Still, we do, And we complain about it. And we avoid mirrors. And some of us have taken to doing it ourselves. Then we really avoid mirrors.

And then there are our dogs.

Raise your hand. Who has done some DIY grooming?

We have been snipping away at Sam. Doodles, with their double coats, can be problematic. They tangle and snarl. The hair is wiry and willowy and sometimes takes on the tendencies of Velcro. We’ve considered using electric hair shears on her and shaving her close. But then we dismissed that, worried we would makes things worse.

Sam needs a haircut, yes. But she really needs one from a professional. Her paws looks like the paws of a black bear. She must have continual trimmings around her eyes so she can see and we can see her. And she has developed a beard. A real beard.

Through it all, in an effort to keep her in reasonable shape, we carry on. We snip. And we brush. And we snip again. Sam wonders why we bother. We tell her it’s for her own good. What we don’t tell her how bad we are at this job, or how her hair is uneven and clumpy. No. Instead we tell her this: “Sam, you look just beautiful.”

But we all know the reality of it, don’t we? All we have to do is look in the mirror.