Poor Little Bear, episode #many

He’s really about had it with this whole shedding thing. Or at least with Daddy’s reaction to it.

It’s a breezy afternoon, just made for blowing away the enormous clumps of undercoat I keep raking out of him. Without that, he can coat the whole yard. On even the most casual session I remove enough hair to knit a respectable schnauzer, or at least one of the longer-haired pomeranians. But he never seems to run out. Trouble is, the poor guy’s hairy enough to produce quite a lot of that annoying static cling, and big enough to constitute an effective windbreak all by himself. So even with a breeze the clumps still go everywhere, principally right back on him.

Alas, that’s not even the big problem. The big problem is (sorry, buddy, but it must be said) Little Bear’s ass.

Little Bear’s ass is big as Newark, hairy as a convention of eighth-century Norsemen, and the favorite location of his mats. I dunno why; it’s like the undercoat migrates to that location. And while he doesn’t mind very much when I brush him anywhere else, he really really hates it when I brush him…there.

Could have something to do with the brush needed to get through all that hair…

…and of course with the fact that being a mammal, Little Bear keeps more than hair down there. Buried somewhere in that region is his sole remaining tender bit, unfortunately rather difficult to see, and Daddy may have hit it with the brush from time to time.

Little Bear has never snapped at his Daddy and apparently never will, but he’s not above passive-aggressive resistance. Like simply sitting down. Unfortunately Daddy really is the biggest baddest meanest so-and-so in the valley, and is capable of hoisting Little Bear right back up by his tail.

Which is how I know he’ll never snap at me. He’d have surely done it by now.

We go through this ever year. Every year I dream of shaving him. But sooner or later, he really does run out of undercoat.