Gracie’s Life Experiment

Our little Mocha needs her hair cutting approx. once a month during Spring/Summer.  Thought as the baby is due next month that I’d better give her an extra good grooming now. As I seem to get a fair few hits from people also looking to “shear their dog” I thought I’d write about how I do it (I’m not a groomer or anything, but it seems to work). Bear in mind she’s a smallish Shih Tsu X Bichon Frise (Zuchon).

So here’s how I tend to do it. 
- Put dog’s leash on and put dog on picnic table, tying off the lead so she can’t jump off
- Get the electric clippers out (clean and oil if necessary). Pick height guide (today I used #2)
- While the dog is standing there put her under your arm (kind of like you’re going to pick her up under your arm but with her head backwards)
- Start shearing her back, starting from the rump. The instructions with the clippers said to go the other way (i.e. neck to tail but I find it doesn’t work as well). Move it slowly and it clips off more efficiently.
- You may find that if you haven’t groomed the dog you may get large matts. You’ll need to trim these off with scissors otherwise doggy doesn’t like it when the clippers get stuck.
- Usually I can use the clippers on her back, rump, sides of her thighs but she won’t let me near her face, legs or underside with them
- Then I do the rest by hand with the scissors. It works best to do as much clippering first as my dog always likes to play silly buggers and wriggles around at the beginning. By the time you get round to doing the fiddly bits you’ve won the battle of wills already and she can’t be bothered to wriggle as much.
- I start with around the eyes, cutting away all the tear duct crap first, then sculting around her muzzle. I like to leave the bit above the eyes a bit longer. Then I just work my way down her “cheeks” (do dog’s have cheeks?) and tidy up around her mouth. She gets staining from her food so I just trim it all away (you may need to move hair from inside her lips to cut it). Then I go for the top of the head down to the collar, I’ll pull up a tuft of hair with my hands (starting from the skin pulling gently until my fingers are about 1 inch from the skin then I cut at the tips of my fingers, thus ensuring I don’t cut through skin).
- With the ears you need to be especially careful to find the edge of the actual ear skin (as she has floppy ears and it often matts it can be quite tough). I tend to pinch gently with my fingernails to feel the textures. Then I leave a finger’s worth of gap and trim the hair away (for some reason her ear hair grows much faster than elsewhere). The underside of the ears is hard to do as she will shake her head when u tickle them. I find that I have to use a comb to straighten out the hair in her ears (and it’s very waxy) so that I can cut it.
- I then trim away under her chin down her chest. Her skin is much baggier/pink under her neck and stomach so be careful if you are using the “pulling the hair straight” before cutting it as there is more give. I find at this stage if you stand perpendicular to the dog’s skin then you can actually see through the hair and see where the skin’s edge is
- I use the scissors to trim off down each leg. The fur on her legs goes really curly when it’s wet and the skin is quite tight so I find that I can just turn the scissors at an angle and just trim away at it without getting any skin. You need to make the dog stay standing up. Mine doesn’t mind the front paws being done, but as soon as you start doing the rear legs she tries to sit down (I find it easiest to do with the dog under my arm (sort of around her stomach with her face pointing backwards)
- Then I tackle the tail and rear end. I hate this bit as she doesn’t like me pulling her tail and is v coy about me trimming away down there.
- I may then get the clippers out one more time and run it over her again just to get any stray bits off and to make sure that there’s no tufts
- Once I’m happy more or less with how she’s looking then I do the fiddly bit. She hates it, I hate it but we somehow manage to get it done. I’ll sit on the floor with my legs out straight, then put the dog on her back on my legs (using my legs like a cradle/vice). I start with her head nearest me first and clip each paw pad (watch out of the dew claw as doggies don’t like it if you try and cut it off!!). If you press your thumb against the upper two middle “toes pads” then the pads will spread and you can then use the scissors carefully to trim the hair out from between the pads (sometimes it’s very hard if she’s got mud caked in there). The skin between the two middle toepads comes up quite high so be careful between those two.
- Then I rotate the dog (still on her back) so that her head is pointing away from me. Do the same for the back paw pads. Then I trim any long wispy bits off her stomach working down towards her bits. She always tries to put her tail in the way, but I find you can tuck her tail under your leg. Then trim very carefully around the bits.

It takes a lot of patience on my part (yes, people who know me will laugh as I’m so NOT patient). It usually takes me about an hour to shear her, but the first 10 mins is always her monkeying about and trying to escape, and prob another 10 mins during that hour is me arguing with her!!! She does look every so cute when her hair is long (like a little teddy bear) but she just stinks in Summer.

Summary of the day: Sheared the dog, Went into work to input my marking, Went out for pub lunch with Matthew, Came home and had a nap, Felt ill

I think today must have been the hottest day of the year so far.  I was absolutely baking!  According to the thermometer in the greenhouse the maximum temp was 37.5 deg C!  It must have been at least 26 yesterday with clear blue skies and no breeze.  I must admit that I did for a millisecond look over at the pond and think it looked tempting for a dip (apart from all the algae and leaf mulch).  I sat indoors hiding from the heat most of yesterday.  I did manage to get a bit of the gardening/potting done in the greenhouse in the morning before someone turned up the thermostat on the country!  The dog of course was being a dog and hanging out in the garden basking in the sun on the lawn all day looking too hot.  She chased a few pigeons that dared to enter her airspace and drank water from the pond waterfall.  She came in occasionally to lie on the laminate floor in the dining room with her legs sprawled out in all directions to get maximum stomach area onto the cool floor.  She really needs a haircut/shearing again but it was too hot outside for me to do it today - maybe tomorrow.

Only question is… how will I cope with the heat when we move to oz in December?  At least I won’t have a built-in oven on the front of me.  The baby belly does make me feel really very warm anyway (I’ve been sleeping with just a thin sheet over me at night since April).

Summary of the day:  Had a fabulous lie in (wow after 2 nights of only about 4 hrs of sleep each night I was so knackered I slept till 9.30), Got up and tidied the kitchen, Stripped and washed bed sheets, Pootled about in the garden, Hung out washing, Felt too hot and hid inside, Marked student projects (am getting there slowly but surely), Ate ice creams and ice lollies.

So we’re off on holiday (well the first stage of travelling) today! Haven’t even started packing properly yet.  Poor Mocha cannot come to Oz so she is staying with Aunties Rach and Lou.  God help them!  Mocha is very cute and adorable, but also v naughty sometimes.  I really hope she doesn’t bark too much and annoy them.   She got picked up at around 2pm and didn’t even bother saying goodbye to us - meh.  Well, Rach often comes to take Mocha for a walk, so I guess she just thought she was off for a walk and then coming back.  I was so sad.  I managed to last about 2 mins from when they left before crying a bit and John had to cuddle me better.  I miss my Miss Mooky

Summary of the day:  Packing, packing, more packing, Tidying up the house, Driving, more driving!

Little Miss Mocha decided it would be such fun to howl along to the storms through the night.  Just because the wind blows over the chimney pots making howling noises, she thinks she has to join in.  She finally shut up at about 4am after John got angry with her.  So spent today like a grumpy, zombified pregnant woman!  The day ended nicely as we got invited round to Rachy’s for dinner (mmm enchiladas) and ended up reminiscing about when we were kids and all the awful 80s trends we thought were cool at the time (now terribly cringy).

 Summary of the day:  Shouted at barking dog, Went to work, Went to Rachy’s for dinner

Our furry surrogate baby Mocha usually sleeps on our bed at night.  She starts out sleeping at our feet and as soon as we drop off she climbs onto the pillow on top of hubby’s head (think Davy Crockett).  With the baby coming and Mocha going to stay over at a friend’s house for a couple of weeks at the end of this month while we’re on hols we thought we’d try and “persuade” the dog to sleep downstairs again.  So it got to bed time and she had bolted onto the bed and gone to sleep already so hubby picked her up and cuddled her and then shut her downstairs.  She was NOT impressed!  She barked and whined for about 10 mins and then I guess went to sleep.  I think she’s OK with it apart from if we are doing something - at which point she feels left out.  So when the TV was on she was whining, and when I got up to go to the loo she woke up and scratched at the door while squeaking.  It was sooo sad.  But best to get her into the habit of going downstairs now rather than when the baby comes, otherwise she’ll say “this is no coincidence that this pink squishy thing arrived and I got shunned”.

Summary of the day: Work (again), Had a nice long bath, Watched Hotel Babylon (it’s like watching a mix between a soap opera and Heat magazine)

Mocha went for walkies with Aunties Rachy and Lou again today.  She must have worn herself out because she was really hungry.  John was being really good to me today (let me put my feet up after yesterday’s mayhem) and did all the tidying up of the aftermath from the party.  Mocha usually eats some of her dinner (she gets kibble) and grazes till the next dinnertime, but today she didn’t want to eat any of it.  Thought maybe she had eaten some plant or something while out walking that had made her ill!  But no, John finds the black bin bag in the conservatory on the floor sideways with the dog’s head in it.  She’d gone in and eaten the remnants of party food from people’s plates and the serving dishes.  Greedy dog.  I think late last night I also came to the conclusion that she had been about 75% successful with her begging last night as most people seemed to have succumbed to her puppy-dog eyes and accidentally dropped something off their plates.

Summary of the day:  Played piano in church, Went out for a pub lunch with the party survivors, Came back home and feel into a deep afternoon sleep, Sorted out the laundry (yawn).

Mocha (our 2 yr old Zuchon) loves to play all day - apart from when she is curled up snoring that is.  Her favourite game to play is chasing things down the stairs.  She likes for you to sit at the top of the stairs and she’ll bring you a toy (jingly ball and rubber tyre work well, 1/2 gnawed bone doesn’t).  She’ll drop it at your feet and smile/pant at you.  Then you throw it down the stairs, preferably hitting as many steps on the way down and bouncing in as un-straight line as possible.  She chases it down the stairs growling at it (especially if it hits her along the way) and then scuttles about in the laminate floor hallway, picks it up and runs back up the stairs and it all starts again.  This goes on for about 10 mins, or until one of us gets tired.  If I retire from the game too early then she’ll just entertain herself by throwing it down the stairs herself.  When she gets tired she starts making mistakes and either doesn’t stop in time and bangs her head on the door, or she tries to go too quickly and doesn’t actually pick the toy up, or she’ll misjudge the steps and plough horizontally into a step thus testing out her crumple zone (aka snout).  Silly dogbot!

Summary of the day:  Went to Tescos, Waited for Freecycle woman to pick up digi camera, Made tonkatsu (again - I blame the baby) 

Our friend reached the big 30 milestone.  She is officially XXX rated!!  Suppose what’s scary is that we’re not too far off that ourselves.  When I was young I don’t think I ever contemplated being 30 or what I would have expected to achieve by then.  Lou had a massive house party with the first BBQ of the year (luckily it wasn’t raining/snowing, but was bloody cold)!  Mocha made a new friend called Maggie, who’s an 11week old staffie.  Mocha didn’t quite know what to make of her and kept hiding (think Mocha is finally getting a taste of her own medicine for when she was a boisterous little puppy harrassing older doggies to play).

Summary of the day:  Went food shopping (by myself, so proud I only spent £39 on the week’s shopping which included £15 on a present), Cooked canneloni for lunch, Went to Lou’s 30th party, Managed to stay up till midnight!

Took Miss Mocha for a walkies to Outwoods again today.  This time accompanied by Rachy and Lou.  Was nice to actually get out and about after a whole week of miserable drizzly weather.  So we all wrapped up in coats and scarves and headed out.  Unfortunately all the rain meant that the Mocha dog decided to jump in EVERY single puddle/mudpool/stream going and ended up quite black.  I haven’t cut her hair since August so she was filthy.  Got home and it took over an hour to cut her hair/fur.  I usually use the clippers on the back to get started, but it was so long, curly and matted that I couldn’t use them, so I had to hand scissor her all over.  Poor dog was shivering due to fur loss but fell asleep while I was trimming in between her paw pads (thank goodness, that’s the worst bit if she’s awake).  Shortly after finishing the dog, John got his hair cut (he has his own set of clippers so doesn’t have to share with the dog).  Thankfully his only takes 5 mins and is a bit like mowing. 

Summary of the day:  Had a nice lie in (watching dodgy TV cookery shows), Made spaghetti bolognaise for lunch (had cravings for it), Went for walkies, Went round to Rachy’s for dinner (home made fish pie with the trout her grandad caught)!

Bloody dog decided it would be fun to wake up at 3 in the morning and bark (some cats or something in the garden having a fight).  Which thus resulted in a crap night’s sleep for me, and the mother of all headaches in the morning.  Felt absolutely awful and stayed home (it’s bad when you’ve only been back 2 days at work and need a day off already).  Hope it isn’t the start of that winter vomiting virus (yeuch) which is apparently spreading like wildfire round the UK.

Summary of the day:  Woke up at 3, Didn’t sleep until 7, woke again at 9, slept again at 11, Rach came over to keep me company in the afternoon