Too hot to handle: a doggy hair crisis

Too hot to move!

Summer has finally arrived and I have a complaint to take up against the heat: I am one hot bitch. Being a pom originally hailing from POMERANIA (today part of eastern Germany and northern Poland), I have a double layered coat and was born and bred, believe it or not, to pull tiny designer sleds through the snow. I am a creature of Autumn/Winter, a lover of furs, shearlings and anything fuzzy. Gladiator sandals and floral summer frocks are simply not a good look for me--makes my tale look fat. So every year, when this weather rolls around, turning Londontown (the city also known as LAND-OF-NO-AIRCON) into a dog-sized sauna, I suffer. I pant, my tongue hanging out of my mouth which makes me look like a desperate single lass ready to devour the nearest pug or bulldog to saunter past. My paws are so hot and sweaty I can barely type this post, all I want to do is splay out on the bed and pray for a slight breeze to break the heavy stale air (pictured above).  What to do?? Last summer, when I went with Mommy to Sorrento for a beach holiday, she had me shaved in order to make my adventures more comfortable (keeping the tail, of course). And while at first I felt as though my prize fabulousness had been cruelly robbed from me, after I saw how the world swooned and crooned at my short crop, I owned up to it and rocked the look well into the fall when my locks started to grow back.

My short 'do

But the problem was thus: because of the delicate nature of a Pomeranian's double coat, you are never to take a razor to our fur. This groomer (Mutz Nutz) did just that. So while the cut looked and felt great for the summer months, it actually, like a bad perm or crappy extensions, did more damage to my coat in the long run. It took months of regular trips to the groomer to regain my former fluff, and it's still not all back yet.

There's also the matter of the short cut making me look like a pup again, which, having just rounded 21 in dog years, sends cootie-like shivers up my spine. I want to scream in Mommy's face, I'M NOT A PUPPY ANYMORE and get the grown up respect I feel I've earned over the long years of my adolescence. But the shortcut takes me straight back to a young girl of 14 weeks, I really don't want to have to start carrying my ID again to parties. Besides, you never know when this heat will break and London's atmosphere returned to its regularly gloomy state and I'll be left shorn, nearly naked, for all the world to see and freezing cold.  I suppose I could always go the route of doggy extensions in that case, but being a breed known for the fabulousness of my coat, I just never felt right checking out the canine weaves alongside those scraggly hairless chihuahuas. OH the trials and tribulations of a doginista's life!