Tag Archives: Two Mollys in one!

Molly – Fuzzy and Sleek

This is Fuzzy Molly. She’s a Cocker Spaniel/Schnauzer cross. She’s getting old now, but holds her own with rambunctious Amber. (94-pound yellow lab ‘puppy’, plus our two cats, Smoke and Abby.) She doesn’t communicate much with our four fish in the aquarium.

In the winter we let her hair grow. It’s kind of a mess, particularly when the weather is wet, because Molly comes in covered in mud, having stuck her nose way down deep into some hole or other she’s found in the yard. We got her some 13 years ago now, to be a sweet little lap dog for me. What we actually GOT was a fun-loving 25 pound dog who thinks she’s a mastiff. I put her in the kitchen sink to get her clean and fluffy, at least until she goes out again…

I’ve told you that we live on top of a ridge line outside of the town of Greenwood, Arkansas. We have about 8 acres of scrubby woods where we live close enough to town to go every day, but enjoy our privacy, pretending we own all we can see. :0)  With this comes the ‘perks’ of lots of burrs, fleas and ticks – as well as other critters like raccoons, possums, deer, skunks, rabbits, and more.

Wednesday we took Molly to our vet’s office to be sheared like a sheep and get her annual shots.

The groomer would like to give her a mustache, beard, long eyebrows, and other stuff, but we ask for ‘short all over.’ SHE isn’t the one who has to deal with Molly after she’s gone out for a run with a face full of little bitty burrs tangled in all the cutesy-pie long hair on her face. Poor Molly HATES having me comb them out. I know it hurts her, so ‘short all over’ allows her to run through the brush as she likes without bringing it all home with her. It also makes it easy to see any ticks walking on her, and treat her for any fleas easily and quickly.

I look at it this way – we get TWO Mollys for the price of one – Fuzzy Molly and Sleek Molly. I love them both to pieces.

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Two Mollys in One

Molly is 14 years old and weighs about 25 lbs. She is a schnauzer/cocker spaniel cross and has a HEAVY coat of fur. We let it grow out in the winter to help keep her warm.

Sheepdog Molly/Winter Molly

When the weather starts to warm up, we take her to the groomer to be sheared like a sheep. We ask them to cut it ‘short all over.’ The groomers would like to leave her bushy eyebrows, a beard, mustache, cute longer curly hair on her hips, tufted tail, maybe even ‘socks,’ but we insist on ‘short all over.’

We live on top of a ridge line on a small, woody piece of land that is a gathering place for ticks, fleas, and most of all, burrs of all shapes and sizes. Since Molly is NOT a ladylike dog, preferring to run to the nearest hole in the yard and stick her nose as far down into it as possible, trying to get whatever made the hole, ‘cute’ is a definite liability.

She runs like a mad thing all over the yard, rolling in the grass or – even better – some awful, stinky thing she finds, coming in with burrs from stem to stern. If she has a ‘cute’ haircut, I spend a half hour or more with a comb, trying to get the burrs out of her beard, mustache, eyebrows, between her toes, etc. She is NOT happy with that, so ‘short-all-over’ it is.

 

Sleek Molly / Spring, Summer, and Fall Molly

This is how she looks most of the year. If she finds interesting stuff outside, the burrs are whisked off pretty quickly. If needed, I can plonk her into the kitchen sink and scrub her all over. ONE towel and a short time with the hair dryer and she’s ready to be a close part of our family again.

We love both “Sheepdog” Molly and “Sleek” Molly. It’s like having two dogs in one!

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