Furinate

September 13, 2010

I never guessed I would spend so much time thinking about dog fur. I grew up in a home with dogs, but back in the old-fashioned days, dogs lived in the backyard. Maybe on the coldest, nastiest days they would get to claim a spot on an old towel in the laundry room.

My life and my dogs' lives are different now. It's not unusual to see Willie curled in a ball on the sofa, hindquarter twitching a bit in rhythm to his bunny dreams. Teddy has thousands of years of breeding built into her system which demands lap time (and a spot on the bed between my right leg and Walter's left leg). Uma feels obligated to pace around the kitchen if anyone else is there, to claim any carelessly dropped morsel of anything (and I do mean anything, including a scrap of celery).

They each have their own grooming problems that require attention for them to live inside. Willie's short, sleek hair isn't as big a problem as his continually muddy feet, but he does shock shed (if he gets scared or if his cervical stenosis flares up, we find his stubby red fur on all the furniture). Teddy doesn't shed, but her tail plume and ears pick up burs and beggar's lice. She requires beauty shop appointments every couple of months to maintain her beauty and keep her coat manageable.

Uma, however, is in a league of her own. She is a fluffy dog who sheds year round. The solution:

This little tool (actually called a FURminator, but I think it sounds oh-so-much-more potent to drop the "m" and call it a furinator in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger accent) can take the fur off! In fact, the neighborhood birds leave bribes on my back porch and window sills, trying to entice me to furinate her so they can collect her fur and add to the loft and plushness of their nests, much like if they feathered their nests with luxurious Hungarian goose down. Here's what a minute and a half of furinating produced:

Now, as John Cleese might say, for something completely different.

This is something that made me say Hmmm last week. I pulled up to a red light (first in line). I checked my rearview mirror hoping not to see some careless student driver about to be ticketed for failure to stop. Instead, I saw a shiny red Prius, just like mine. Then before I looked away, a third shiny red Prius pulled up and joined the line. I felt like I had wandered into the filming of a Toyota commercial and that the three of us were supposed to rev off on some adventure while the loving-eyed camera followed our moves around tight curves with beautiful vistas as the backdrop.

Please consider yourself invited to our Bead-i-licious Beading Workshop on Friday (September 17) at my house, come after you finish school or work. Stay as long as it fits in your schedule.