Grooming Holly, or as I call it Going Into Battle!

This page is my interpretation of grooming my woolie Malamute. Yours may be quite different.

My daughter and I woke up very early to bring Holly to the groomers. The groomer felt that since Holly was a super shy and sensitive dog that having the place quiet with no other dogs and groomers around would make things easy for Holly. Holly took one look at the place we took her to a week earlier to get her nails clipped (which was another nightmare) and she dropped herself to the floor so we would not be able to bring her in.  It took all three of us to get her into the place and a lot of work to get her to the shampoo room. Knowing full well this was not going to go well, my daughter and I stayed and waited on the bench nearby. Approximately ten minutes later the groomer came out with Holly and said "This is not going to happen today."  I was not surprised.  Holly had pooped all over the place. The groomer was extremely nice and loves Holly and really wanted to be able to groom her in all her fluffiness, but it was not to be....that day. Which leads me to writing about it on this page.

So! This is Holly. She is approx. 75 pounds. She certainly looks bigger then that, right?  Holly is our first wooly. Our other three Alaskan Malamutes had the "standard" look.  All three of them loved getting brushed. In fact, they would wait in line for their turn and sometimes cut ahead of each other!  So when our new little fluffy ball of fur grew up (to what you see below) and ran away at the site of a brush I knew I was in trouble. Then I come to find out that woolies do not shed like regular mals. The term "blowing their coat" is not an issue with woolies or at least ones like Holly. You need to go in and get that fur off of them.

My daughter and I took Holly for a walk at the park today. We passed a little boy and his mom. After we passed them we heard the little boy say "Let's catch up to that Lion!"

Tools I use to groom a malamute that does not want anything to do with getting brushed.

1. A pair of leather gloves to protect my hands from her teeth as she tells me she does not want to be brushed.

2. Clothing that the fur will not stick to easily. Don't wear a sweater!

3. A rake brush and scissors.

4. A bowl of tiny cooked pieces of chicken.

5.  A partner to feed tiny pieces of cooked chicken to distract her while I brush.

6. A pair of scissors to trim any matting that are too far gone to comb out under her arms. Matting occurs at first behind the ears & under the arms.  With dogs that are completely neglected the entire body becomes matted.  Usually animal shelters/rescues are the ones who see the really bad matting from total neglect and have no choice but to shave. On the main page there is a link as to why shaving is not good for a double coated dog. But for times sake and no other recourse shelters handle sever matting in this manner.

7. A lint brush!

This is what I call a butt trim. Before the trimming, this area was messy, stringy, knotted and dirty. I had trimmed her when she was smaller and it grew in. The other day she had a bout of diarrhea and I decided this area was neglected for too long and did the trim.

THIS PAGE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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