The Bad Lady
September 5, 2013 | My Jottings
Every three or four months we take our Schnauzers to The Bad Lady. This is what they call Joyce, the groomer who has bathed and clipped our dogs for years.
Edith and Mildred call her The Bad Lady because she does things to them they don’t love. She pours water all over them and puts stinky smelling shampoo all over their hair (Schnauzers don’t have fur). She stands them up on a grooming table and keeps their chins lifted by a suspended collar so they can’t sit down or jump off. She squeezes them in humiliating places to empty certain glands. She uses a very loud buzzing thing all over their little Schnauzery bodies to take all the warm hair off. She uses a clipper on their nails and it snaps loudly when the bits fly. And she plucks the hair from the insides of their ears. Edith and Millie prefer not to visit The Bad Lady.
But alas, their mama and daddy want them to go. They come back smelling clean and fresh. They always look a little too severe sleek at first, but in a couple of weeks their hair will grow a bit.
When eleven year-old Edith (below) gets too fluffy, we think she looks like the Sesame Street wolf. When she comes back from The Bad Lady, we think she looks a bit alien, and has bat ears. Here are before and after pictures:
And seven year-old Mildred (below) always looks the same, whether fluffy or shaved: disturbed. Millie is our troubled dog, with multiple personality quirks that make her simultaneously hysterical and annoying.
They always zip around jubilantly when we pick them up from The Bad Lady’s house. They’re so thrilled to be home, and they whisper to each other when we’re not looking, “Whew! Now we can relax for another three months!”
Do your pets talk like ours do?
A word on the quiet to Edith & Millie (shush) – don’t tell the parents but I’m on your side. I much prefer the before photos – I think a casual, shaggy dog look is very cute! You have my sympathy, just keep mum. 🙂
Dear Nice Lady, We won’t tell mama and daddy about what you said! We would like to meet you. We like the way you think. We think you would be very nice to snuggle next to. Sshhhhh… Woof love, Edith and Mildred
Another for the shaggy look, but, hey guys, I don’t mind speaking to your mummy on your behalf. I have cats that look like your before pics & the fur would fly if anyone tried shaving them!
Mildred to Edith, “How far is Australia from Minnesota Eeds?” 🙂
Hi Julie,
I think your dogs look lovely. I have a 10 year old lurcher and two cats and none of them would tolerate being groomed…sigh. Perhaps I should show the loopy lurcher what a nice, well behaved dog looks like!
Hello Lesley, Thank you so much for stopping by. I have never heard of a lurcher, so I had to look it up! There’s nothing like a couple of goofy pets in the house, is there? I hope your weekend is blessed! xoxo
Woooo! Your dogs shrank!!!!
They did Helen. They even look at each other strangely for a day or two after grooming, like, “Whoa! You’ve changed!” 🙂 xo
Greetings and condolences to Edith and Mildred: You look lovely at any length!
Hi Susan! How wonderful to see you here! I miss you and know you of all people understand how our dogs talk to us. xoxo
Those pics are so great. Mildred has this little sneer in both her pictures – you can tell by looking at her that she’s more trouble than Edith, ha ha! I love Edith’s bat ears, esp. how that one is curled down a little bit. I trim my two and do everything except the toenails. I’m just too nervous about clipping too short and hearing them yelp (and bleed)!
Pat you’re so right. She is sneering. Her whole attitude is an inner sneer, or sometimes a smirk. 🙂 I would be nervous about clipping toenails too — Edith’s did bleed once when she came back from The Bad Lady. 🙁
Millie is screaming at the top of her lungs W H A T E V E R!!!
And Mildred is drunk…wine drunk, to be exact.
Millie was too proud to drink the offered libation. She’d rather leave with attitude….
Thank you for helping me interpret what the schnauzers are saying!! So true! xoxo