don’t play again, Sam ... or quelles mauvaises herbes !

We went for our morning walk joined, as usual, by Sam the Golden Retriever. Sam’s owners let him wander around all day whilst they are at work. He’s often waiting for us because, quite understandably, he loves to go for walks with people. I feel so sad for him – I think he’s a young dog and obviously needs lots of exercise which is why, no doubt, they let him out in the morning to spend the day following people up and down the canal.

The problem is : I’ve often found him in our chemin – so he has crossed the main road, which can be very busy at times. Also, he’s a large dog and the the track along the canal is somewhat narrow. On Thursday, last week, right at the start of our walk, he knocked me down. He’d just met up with us, was full of beans and so happy to see L B. They started running up and down using me a ‘home’ and Sam ran into the back of me, causing me to twist my left ankle, come thumping down on my right buttock ending up flat on the path. What a great game this is, thought Sam and came and threw himself down between my splayed legs and rolled onto his back, muddy paws in the air. L B, being the intelligent dog he is, realised with my cry as I went down and the moaning as I lay motionless that something was definitely not right and promptly jumped on my stomach, growling at Sam.

There the three of us stayed for some moments until I felt able to move the two dogs away from me and work out whether I could get to my feet and if so, would I then be able to walk ? Luckily I was able to do both and was glad that there had been no-one around to see how inelegantly I scrambled upright, clutching to the chain-link fence for support. I gingerly placed one foot in front of the other and hobbled slowly along with one hand against the fence. They started again ! Racing up and down the path and spinning round at the point I stood. “Get away, dégagez, you blasted animals !”

I walked for a little, but progress was slow and they carried on their game of tag until I decided I could take no more and headed for home feeling somewhat sorry for myself.

The ankle swelled, the buttock and pelvis felt slightly bruised and everything ached and creaked, so no more walks for L B and I until yesterday morning.

Sam appeared and was somewhat calmer, but they always go mad when we get down to a grassy track away from the canal as we’ve turned for home. The tag started again and I spotted a short, thickish stick which I picked up with a thought of using it in some way to keep Sam at bay ... too late – he’s a Retriever, after all – he grabbed the stick from my hand and started galloping up and down with the stick protruding from either side of his mouth at knee level ! Not a good idea. Luckily his attention span was short and he dropped it a little further along, to investigate an interesting smell. A little further along, he came rushing out of the undergrowth, with L B in pursuit, carrying half a dried baguette. He ran L B followed and I wondered how far L B would go before he realised that Sam wasn’t going to stop this time and was taking his prize home. Not very long and we enjoyed our Sam-less walk all the more until we got to his place to see him swallowing the last mouthful. L B sniffed at the crumbs, but Tibetan Terriers aren’t too fussed about scavenging for food.

Back to this morning : Sam’s obviously been in the water already and seems relatively calm, but continues jumping in and out of the canal, shaking furiously, jumping straight back in. Even L B stands back and I’ve already got wet shoes, splashes on my trousers and a couple of wet, faintly muddy patches on my calves where he has pushed past me. When we get to the open area where the potager is right next to the canal I stop momentarily to take photos of the new growth on the courgette plants as a follow-up to my earlier post. The two of them are playing along the verge and in and out of the vegetables – oh yikes, please don’t let them have done any damage. L B starts rubbing himself along the ground and I realise that I can’t see his white eye ... It is totally closed by some innocent-looking grass which acts like irreversible velcro and hermetically seals whatever is underneath. Then I see he is absolutely covered in the stuff around the right side of his head, the short hair on his legs and around the paws. I sit on the bank and try in vain to part the fur over his eye. A local dogwalker with his tiny Yorkshire Terrier – who yaps frantically at these two when ever we meet him – offers to go to his nearby house for scissors, which I decline (I hope, graciously) as I don’t have my glasses with me.

I put L B on the lead and walk as fast as my fragile ankle will allow, to try and stop him from rubbing his face. By the time we’re nearing the end of the canal he has managed to put his head in the dirt a couple of times and jump in and out of the canal as if he were able to gain some relief from this horrible stuff. Another dog walker holds her dog and stands out of the way. She asks if Sam is my dog and says he often follows her. I tell her he is not, but not to worry as he will probably follow us and not her. During this time she has looked down at L B and the expression on her face as she says “Je croîs qu’il y a un petit problème ... I think there’s a small problem... ” makes me glance at him to see that all of the right side of his snout has grass sticking out of it and where his eye once was is now covered in grey dust. I mutter about the mauvaises herbes and getting back to sort him out and she says it will probably be necessary to take him to the vet. Not again, I’m thinking, we must have bought shares in the veterinary practice by now – how I wish I’d taken out what seems now to be a most reasonably priced pet insurance and wonder if Sam’s owners are covered for any accidents he may cause ...

I see Sam’s garden gate is open and bundle him through, pulling it to until the bell clangs and I rush on. By the time we cross over the road and get to our chemin all L B wants to do is put his face down and not move. So I pick him up and carry all 8kg of him up the hill and the rest of the way home. In the house, he stays in the kitchen were I put him down, whilst I search for the seam unpicker – some tip I’d read about on a pet-grooming site.

It took 35 minutes to free his eye, some of the fur round is nose and the stuff that had got into the (already short) hair between his pads. His eye, which looked extremely red, now looks fine and I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon carefully freeing the fur on his legs. If I thought he looked a bit wonky after his dog grooming with Amandine, you should see him now !

home doggy salon

Amandine has just left in her smart little black Renault Clio with racing wheels. As she walked up the path I noticed from behind that she has no shoulders and I wonder how she carries a handbag – obviously diagonally or surely it would keep slipping off ? I've just paid her €20 to clip L B and I’m astonished that she charged so little and relieved that it’s all over. L B on the other hand is rubbing himself along the ground and mussing up his ears and quite happy to go with her to her car as she packs the accoutrements away.

She sounded about 12 when I phoned her to book the appointment and didn’t seem to me to be an awful lot older when she arrived an hour and three quarters ago, wearing a baby pink t-shirt with sequins and sparkly silver flip flops. She was very business-like, handled L B very well and played with him for a moment after she lifted him down from the grooming table, but so laid back I felt that a bomb could go off and she would hardly react. She had no option but to shave off his appallingly matted coat and we discussed how she should tackle his head – I didn’t want him to have a pointed snout “he’s not a poodle” I kept hearing myself say. The lady he used to go to, who’s salon is called Le Chien Coquet, has two poodles tied up whilst she works and L B came out with the look of a new breed of dog, the Terrioodle.

I was hoping not to have to have him shaved again – I would really like him to grow his coat to look like a proper Tibetan Terrier and whilst he would never be as stunning as Fabulous Willy who won best in show at Crufts in 2007, I feel that it shouldn’t be beyond my grooming capabilities. After all, I did have Gizmo the Shih-Tzu who lived in this area 12 years ago and I never had to resort to such drastic measures. But TTs have this double coat, which keep them cool in Summer and warm in Winter, and we live in the countryside full of viscious flora that find L B’s coat a perfect place to attach itself to to transport seeds to other places. Indeed, the garden here has an ever widening patch of particularly nasty grasses and pretty ground-cover plants which produce burrs the size of peas and as sharp as needles !

His last toilettage was in March and I have been very good at brushing him since. Whilst he was injured – a pulled achilles tendon – I had not been taking him on our usual walk and he remained on the lead and walked mostly on the road. When the vet gave the all clear to start taking him for his proper walks where he bounds around like a mad thing, I started to lose the plot with the grooming. We walk alongside the irrigation canal and he hops in and out of it to drink and cool down. Add to that his harness (easier to grab him when he’s being uncooperative), rolling in the dust and rubbing his face along where they’ve been cutting grass and in the space of three days his under coat rubbed into a dense layer of felt ! This must now be causing L B to heat up more and it became a harbour for sharp bits of undergrowth and grass seed which weave their way in and can go in only one direction. So, needless to say, we’ve been in and out of the vets with a grass seed in an ear, another in his paw ... It has become ... dangerous.

I feel so ashamed that I seem incapable of keeping him knot-free, that I have not been in touch with his breeders to let them know how we’re getting on. The kennel that he came from – l‘Empire de Mistral – is in the middle of the country near Marseilles. They have seven TTs and they are never shaved. I think I will have to contact them and confess that spending nearly an hour every day just doesn’t work for us and is it a total travesty to keep his hair short ?

I bought a shaver, thinking that I would be able to groom him myself. I downloaded a useful e-book on dog grooming at home which has some really good tips and thought I would have a go. I didn’t read enough of the book, just skimmed down the pages, in my eagerness to try and bring relief to my poor prickled baby. Result : stressed L B, stressed me, burrs and hair stuck to everything including my face because I was so hot, there were rivulets of perspiration running down my face and cleavage, aaaarrrrgggghhhh ! Get him done professionally, which is where dear little Amandine came in with her myriad grooming combs and brushes and a much more serious-looking heavy-duty shaver.

Then from beneath the pelt that came off him like a tiny sheep, emerged this delicate-framed cartoon dog. I’m not sure about the finished ‘look’ – I’ll get used to it, I suppose, and of course it will grow back. But to have all this done in our own environment and a totally stress-free L B – it was worth every centime !