Shearing time.

I am the happy owner of a very intelligent, family-bred AKC-registered dog. She is descended from champions. She is a Standard Poodle. She requires regular grooming. And, alas, she does not go to the same groomers who made her parents champions. No. She goes to me. Or, more accurately, my table.

I groom Petunia every three months on average. I wish I could say that I groomed her in pretty poodle cuts. I don't. That would require starting the grooming process with a nicely brushed dog. And after three months of no brushing, as any poodle owner will tell you, what you start with is a matted fur-ball. Poodle hair is just that, hair, not fur. And it grows and grows and grows in a soft curly mass. I wish I could tell you that I only groom her every three months because of some nice green reason, like it saves on the electricity that the clippers use, but that's not it. I am just too lazy. It took over two hours to groom her today. She gets shaved down, which leaves her looking a little goofy, but after a few weeks her hair will be half an inch, and very nice looking in a traditional "Sporting Cut", like modern hunting Poodles get -- yes, poodles are hunters, birders to be exact. Some of my mother's puppies have gone on to become national birding champions.

My sweet Petunia would love to carry our chickens around in her soft mouth, but they don't agree. And, knowing that I do not agree either, she leaves them alone. Oh, but she looks!

She will stay nice looking for the next 2 months, and then, well, she'll begin to become a sheep-dog again, and get shaved sometime in July probably. This winter was so cold I let her keep her hair longer than usual -- almost 5 months! Wow, that was fun to take off... Not matted at all, no sir.

How DO sheep shearers do it so quickly? My clippers were barely up the task, even with new blades.

Here is Petunia, mid-grooming. She looks happy, and she is, but it's only b/c I turned off the clippers.