The Hairy Dog Days of Summer
The Hairy Dog Days of Summer
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that labs shed lightly; that would be a lie, or, at the very least, gross misinformation. For us, the dog days of summer have been awash in hair. Short haired breeds can and do shed copiously. Old Billiebob (R.I.P.March 2009) was a long haired Collie X, and he actually shed very little. He held on to his hair until he was combed. The labs, on the other hand, had been freely donating, hair rolling off, just from being petted. I am certain other multi-dog homes can empathize with our hairy situation. One hairy dog is a challenge. Think times three!
You know you might have a hair problem when:
- You routinely stir dog hair into your coffee, along with the cream and sugar.
- The beige carpet begins to look black. (Bridget, bless her heart, blends in, Doobie and Talley are black)
- Dog hair in the food is normal.
- Hair balls waft around in the corners.
- The larger hair balls have names.
- A lab shaking nearby, while you are doing yoga, envelopes you in a cloud of hair.
- The bed sheets are all decorated with hair along the edges, from labs anxious to be greeted, brushing up against.
- You simply cannot keep up to the hair with cleaning efforts.
- You temporarily give up trying to clean.
- The vacuum gives up and is just redistributing the hair.
Naturally I had been making efforts, regular ones at that, to groom the three labs, using a rubber curry; I thought it had been doing a decent job. However, I found I had literally been wasting my time. Weighing in on face book and twitter input, and having had more than enough, I took myself to the pet store, and compared Furminator to a Safari Shed Magic. The latter is significantly less, and soon enough, I had hair, clouds of lovely hair, literally rolling off the labs. As the hair piled up in clouds on the ground with initial uses of the shedding blade, I thought wryly of my inefficient efforts with the rubber curry, and of the increased effort to use it. Inefficient all the way around and I don’t like inefficient.
So thank you face book and twitter friends, for galvanizing me into action. At present I believe the hairy dog days trend has been reversed. The labs can be petted without hair rolling off them. The carpet is maintaining its original color for much longer after vacuuming. It would seem that the hair is under control. Only token amounts continue to come from the shedding blade. I could not have believed that my labs had so much hair left to lose. If you are currently awash in your own hairy dog days of summer, get thee to a store, and try one of the shedding blades on the market, be it Furminator or otherwise. While a certain amount of hair is unavoidable, we can live without being awash in it. The change has been lovely and the labs have never looked better.
Until next time, Leslie and the labbies.
