A Horror Tale of A Newfoundland, Water and Grooming

(Taken from an email written 20th February 2004)

Someone once asked me how I keep up with all the grooming...
Well, sometimes it's just impossible, especially with a water baby like Maggie, who loves the water no matter what the temperature, sometimes it seems the colder the better! (These photos were taken earlier this month.)

This makes it hard to keep up with essential grooming, because the minute she goes in the water, if there's a tangle, it sets tight, just as though it had been sealed with super glue... There are days when she heads straight for the pond the minute the door is unlocked in the morning.
Another important thing you should know about Maggie is her pain tolerance: she doesn't have any.
This all harks back to when she cut her pad and our vet stapled it together - an apparently common way of dealing with this sort of wound. Maggie has never forgotten, or forgiven. She shrieked as though we were cutting her throat. Then she had to be anaesthetised to remove the staple, as none of us (or all of us for that matter) could hold her still enough to get to it. So now she freaks at the slightest sign she's going to be pinned down, or if anyone does anything that she thinks might just possibly hurt. 
Last June, she had to be anaesthetised to demat her as I couldn't hold her on my own, and when I took her to the surgery for some extra man power, they couldn't get near her either. I swore then it would never happen again -I felt like a really bad mum for letting her get to that state, and I half imagined the animal police coming to take my dogs away from me...
But at the end of last week, it was obvious I'd lost the battle with her snags again; despite the use of a Coat King there were nasty mats along each side of her belly, inside her flanks and up the back of her back legs. She wouldn't let me even look at them, never mind touch them, and spent a lot of time biting and licking them. So I buried my pride and spoke to our vet about dematting her under anaesthetic again, and she went in on Tuesday. My vet is always very understanding and says she blames herself after the staple incident, but I'm the one who lets her get like this... It only takes one mat on her belly and I've lost, because that mat is the signal for Maggie never let me touch her belly again. 
Anyway, the fun began when Beth tried to listen to Maggie's heart, she howled like a banshee and struggled so hard that Beth gave it up as a lost cause. Next came the fun of trying to get her onto the weighing platform... It's well nigh impossible to get a 120 pound recalcitrant dog step to onto the middle of a floating plate if she's determined it will bite her... So that was a lost cause too. My vet managed to sedate her fine, but when it came to the IV, they had real problems with that... My poor pup...
Anyway, all went well and when I went to collect in the afternoon, my vet was a bit shame faced, saying she got carried away with the clippers, not to worry I said... Then I saw Maggie's back end at the same time as the vet saw it vertically for the first time, and realised she hadn't even got it symmetrical! 

I reckon that they were going for the Lion Cut (a la Standard Poodle)... It's a really good job that Maggie doesn't take umbrage at folk laughing at her, because my husband brought the house down when he saw the fetching hair style on Maggie's rear...
Oh well, back to resolutions, this time I'm going to keep her belly and inner thighs, if not shaved, then very short. She doesn't seem to worry about the cold - I had a problem getting her in last night, she was laid on the patio in temperatures well below freezing. It's also much easier to keep her dry if there aren't long thick furnishings to soak up the water.  And she does have to be kept dry, so that she doesn't get hot spots or dermatitis.

It's a good job I don't have this problem with Toby... His coat is a nightmare, but at least he lets me drag the rake through mats, and positively relishes the Coat King!

Update January 2005

(from an email 20 Jan 2005)

Today I trimmed three of Maggie's feet and got some of the snags out of her skirt :-). 
You might not think this is the stunning news that I would like to make out, but believe me, after over two years of total panic (Maggie's), tears and guilt (mine), this is news worthy of the front cover of any publication worth its salt...
Last summer, her coat got so bad again despite my best intentions, that she had to be admitted for shaving under anaesthetic - again. This time she freaked out even before she could be sedated: she wouldn't let her leg be shaved to enable IV sedation to be given & then she went into a flat panic at the sight of the needle.  When she was eventually held down (by 5 adults) the sedation didn't appear to work; in the end she was given enough to knock an elephant out and even then she struggled and screamed. It took over 24 hours for her to recover (I never have) and for a while we thought she would be incontinent because she lost all bladder control - someone from the Newf-list suggested it was the sedation acting on her bladder muscles, thank the Lord they were right.
So Beth and I determined this wouldn't happen again and ever since Maggie and I have been down at the surgery at least three times a week for desensitization therapy. It took nearly 3 months for Beth to even hold Maggie's paws, but once that milestone was passed, something clicked in Maggie's brain and her tolerance & confidence increased in leaps and bounds. 
We've been able to wield grooming scissors in her presence since before Christmas, which was brilliant as she used to scuttle away at even a mention of the word. Then at the end of December, I actually used scissors to take a snag out of her front; but no way, no how, could we get her to accept scissors near her feet or skirt. 
Suddenly, last week, in one of our 'training' sessions at home, she let me cut snags from under her tail. I was ecstatic, this would mean no more anaesthetic. 
This morning, I managed to cut out some of the worst snags from her skirt while she was reclining on our bed with her feline friend Tammy;  so I tentatively tried the scissors on her feet, no response... So I kept going... And going. It wasn't until I was nearing the end of the third leg, that she began to get fidgety and I stopped rather than upset her. For the first time in her life, the feathering on her feet and legs (well, 3 of them anyway) no longer looks like snow shoes; she has lovely shapely paws - a trifle uneven - actually, they look more like a 2 year old has been hacking at them, but who cares - and no longer will they act like mud and snow magnets.

Maggie & Tammy	Snow shoe!	Pretty foot

So you see, it can be done - if we can persuade Maggie that grooming and trimming is fun (and treat filled!), then 'most any other dog can be turned round too! I'm so proud of her :-). 
We will still be going to the surgery every day though; this time we're working on getting her used to ear examinations - she has a very yeasty ear, and whilst she'll let me look at it and carefully wipe it with damp cotton wool, if I so much as take the top off the ear drops, she goes into a flat panic. I can't even put the drops onto the cotton wool to wipe in her ear, and as for Beth looking down into the murky depths of Maggie's ear canal with her 'scope, well we might as well try to get her to climb a tree <G>.
Our ultimate goal is to get her in a frame of mind where she can give blood like her Berner sister, Roxie, did; I used to think we were aiming far too high, I would have settled for her being able to be sedated so she could be clipped out, but now? Well, the sky's the limit!
Yes, today is definitely a day I shall remember for a while, storm force winds rattling the windows and doors and Maggie lying dozing on the bed whilst I made ever increasing piles of white fur beside her.

Click here to go Home