Wisdom in Grooming

Lucy my standard poodle loves to play outside with Bear our German Shepherd. But her hair is like velcro to everything that grows here in the southwest. So when her hair starts getting long we find ourselves saying no Lucy when she wants to go outside to play.  Because it means hours spent picking burs and stickers out of her hair and paws. Which is always how we know it is haircut time. I like to keep her clipped really short. I do it myself and save approx. 110$ which is the average price for a large poodle haircut, but I have even spent up to 145$.  Poodles have dense hair so you need to buy good clippers but for 150$ you can get a really great pair which almost pays for itself in one haircut. 

This year we are also having a terrible time with ticks, so the short hair helps us spot them really fast. Bear with his long hair has been getting hit particularly hard with ticks and we have to check him several times a day. Even with him being treated with Frontline tick medicine. I don't ever remember having issues with ticks but it seems the horses attract them. I need to look up natural tick remedies for the horses as well since they have been getting those large deer ticks on them. Apparently to get tick medicine for a horse it is outrageously expensive. I can only imagine since it is like 65$ for 3 treatments for the dogs for the 44 -75 pounds size range and a  horse weighs 1500 pounds Yikes! 

Here is something I have learned from cutting Lucy's hair and grooming her myself. You never know if you can do something unless you try...and in trying you learn how to! Wisdom lessons from the haircut of the poodle. 

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”

~ Aristotle