Can You Color My Dog?

That was the first thing my first customer of the day asked me.

"Can you color my dog?"

I have to say that I kind of stared at her for a moment trying to decide what exactly she was asking me.

You see, I don't advertise creative coloring.

Most of my customers have no idea that I have competed in Creative grooming.

Why?

Because, I have found that some people can be very judgmental about coloring dogs.

For some reason some people see it as a form of abuse.

I just don't see it.

My girl loves the attention she gets.

It does not hurt her, and it washes right out.

I just tell people to watch Animal Cops to see what is really abuse.

Sorry, I got carried away.

Can you tell it really pushes a button when someone wants to tell me I am being abusive by putting color on my dog?

Please!

Sorry again, moving on. 

So I had to ask a stupid question.

"What do you mean by color?"

I have had a few people over the years ask about covering gray or making the color of the dog brighter, so I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same type of color.

"I don't know," she said, "something to liven him up and give him some pizazz."

"I could put some color in his ears if you would like," I suggested.

"Okay, do what you think would look nice," she said.

She wanted me to put the color blue on him.

I told her I could do it with chalk, that would wear out after a few days, or I could use Blow Pens, that would last longer.

She wanted the color to last.

So blow Pens it is.

After he was bathed and groomed we were ready for the Blow Pens.

I placed a paper towel behind the ear to keep the blue from spraying color in the dogs body.

He would have looked good with the entire ear blue, but I had two reasons for only doing part of his ears.

1~He does not like air blowing up around his head,and it would have been a nightmare trying to keep him from jerking away from the blowing the closer I got to the top of his head.

2~I only had one blue Blow Pen left, and I wasn't sure I would have enough blue in the pen to color both of his very long ears.

And, Micheal's Craft Stores no longer carry's the Blow Pens!  :-(

I am going to have to find them on-line now.

I stop every once in a while to comb the color through the hair and see how much more color I need.

 Then I use the hand dryer to help set the color and make sure the color is dry before I let the ear fall against the body.

I did go back and blend a little more blue in to soften the blunt line across the ear.

The pen still had a little color in it so I decided to color the end of his tail too.

It looks so pretty when he puts it up over the top of his back.

He has a very long, beautiful tail that cascades over his back.

I couldn't get him to stand that way on the table to get a picture.

His Mom loved it.

I still think he would have looked good with the whole ear done.

This was my daughters Shihchon for St Patrick's Day.

I like the whole ear colored.

*Reminder to self: Buy some rubber gloves to keep on hand.

It washed off after I bathed a couple of dogs.  :-)

Oh, by the way.

Mother Nature decided to play a little  April Fools trick this morning.

She snowed on my Daffodils.

I have been waiting for some signs of spring.

I am a warm weather girl.

They haven't even opened yet!

And she snowed on them!

I think they will be okay.

It is supposed to be around 70 on Tuesday.

Maybe they will open by then.  :-)

Wishing for Spring.

Happy Grooming, MFF