Poor Lucy and Her Traumatic Beauty Shop Experience

Every so often I have to take Lucy to the groomers for a haircut. I don’t like to do it, mostly because I hate leaving her with strangers anywhere for half the day, but also because she never looks right when I get her back. First of all, she’s a Golden. She’s supposed to have frills, fringes and a poof of a tail. She’s not a lab, for heavens sake. But eventually Goldens can get a bit out of control with the fringes and what not, so you take her over to Petsmart and drop her off at 10:00 in the morning and await the text informing you that she is ready.

They promise you that she will get a luxurious bath complete with some sort of milk conditioner, a thorough teeth brushing, and a nail grinding, plus a fresh haircut. When you drop her off, the stylist points out that Lucy has several mats on her belly which must be dealt with first. I was aware of the existence of these mats, a rarity for Lucy, but the primary reason I have her at the groomers in the first place. I’m figuring that if her hair has gotten long and shaggy enough to develop mats, its time for a cut. No need to worry, I am assured by the perky stylist, she will take care of everything.

The text comes at 1:45. I drop everything and dash over to Petsmart full of nervous apprehension. Poor Lucy has been cooped up over there for nearly 4 hours. What the heck were they doing for four hours? I pull into the parking lot and kill the engine.

Ok. When they bring her out the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “Um..why did you cut her hair so SHORT?” 

Immediately, the stylist launches into a long and unnecessarily technical dissertation about how tricky mat-shaving can be, how to make everything blend in she was forced to cut her hair “a little” shorter than usual. I was so distracted by her absence of frills and fringes that I completely missed the total hack job that was done on her ears. Poor Lucy was mortified with the shame of it all, refusing to perk her ears up no matter what the provocation happened to be on the ride home. Its as if she knew that her ears were a train wreck and the poor girl didn’t want to draw any attention to them!

Normally, this is what frilly, fringy Lucy looks like:

Here she is post hack job:

The good news is that we don’t leave for Maine for 44 more days. Maybe she will look like her old self by then. But for now, she is quite upset with her grooming experience. Any condolence comments you all can offer up will be read aloud to her in an attempt to cheer the poor girl up. 

Thank You!