happy new year!
Well, it hasn’t been happy for everyone at my house. Jack our Shitzu puppy went in for the “alteration” surgery on December fifth. Our little ball of feisty fur was sporting the cone of shame for a week. We all adapted to this inconvenience, as the cone made Jack clumsy as well as us having to be on high alert to monitor his activity as he was healing. Let’s just say we had a stressful week. Or so we thought…
Poor Jack. He bounced back like a champ. Happy and back to his puppy powered self! Chasing our older Shitzu Lovey Grace around the yard and trying to eat her food. The perfect pain in the butt little brother. The weather turned hot for January and so we decided he was in bad need of a grooming. I drop him off with our dear friend and groomer requesting Jack to be, “trim, but not shaved”. Everyone has one of those days where we second guess ourselves and apparently it was our groomers day. She thought maybe she should call us but didn’t and proceeded to shave him down for the first time. Mind you she had just shaved our older girl who prefers the short and sassy in such heat. So, I totally would have thought the same thing…” they want Jack to be cut like Lovey Grace”.
I pick up Jack. He bounces out of the room jumping, full of joy and excitedly pees when he greets me. (Wouldn’t it be great if our favorite humans reacted the same way? Maybe, not the peeing part). He was cut short. Shaved, to be exact. He looked adorable! Like a little boy with his first haircut. The curls were sadly gone, and he looked like a big boy.
When we get home, we notice that he isn’t quite himself. Jack begins to act weird! He won’t come when called. One moment he’s spastic and the next he stops abruptly. Running then chasing his back side. A yelp, here and there. Oh no! Jack is hurt!
I panic. I contact my groomer, she panics.
Then she explains that the first “shave” a puppy gets can be traumatic. She forgot to call and tell me what to expect. She felt terrible, I felt terrible for her feeling terrible. And, I felt even more terrible for Jack who was either traumatized by his first haircut or even worse hurt himself and needed medical attention.
By the end of the week he was snapping back into his old self. I was exhausted from the anxiety of worrying about him and my husband was relieved that he was glad I had taken the advice of the groomer and waited a week before going to a vet and spending a gillion dollars only to find out he was suffering from a bad hair week.
I am reminded by this experience the importance of having a good hair service experience.
It’s true, hair will grow back. But, make sure you communicate clearly to your hair stylist exactly what you want. A dusting? A trim? Or, an inch or two? Who wants a bad hair week or month? No one! Not even Jack.
