In which we take lessons in taming Pooh Bear's Hundred Acre Fur Coat

I've had Shetland Sheepdogs since (counting on fingers) around 1996.  

But I've never had a Sheltie with a coat as heavy as Winnie the Pooh's.

Pooh Bear's fur is literally inches deep.  Petting him is like petting a sheep 2 weeks overdue for shearing.

Niki is a professional dog groomer--and an old friend! 
We invited her over to share her knowledege.

Shetland Sheepdogs in the 1700's were called "yakki dogs", descended from Scandinavian herding dogs imported to the islands.  These dogs were deliberately bred small, as feed was scarce, and were sometimes floated out to small islands with the flock and left there for a week or so, tasked with keeping sheep from wandering off cliffs.  

(Nobody has ever explained to me what the dogs ate while marooned with these sheep, since shelties are lousy mousers and it seems unlikely that Amazon drop-shipped kibble to remote islands in those days.  But anyway.)

First a very thorough bath.

In addition to not sparing their little dogs a lot of food, Shetlanders also didn't dress their dogs in cozy warm outfits.  A successful dog grew his or her own coat, and in that climate, a "good coat" was one that was pretty dang similar to that of a sheep.

It's hard to get a Sheltie's skin wet, as the rough outer coat skids water off like a raincoat,
and the woolly undercoat insulates.

When the English tourists showed up, they were charmed by the sharp little yakki dogs and took them home.  However, being English, they felt honor-bound to "improve" the breed, so they crossed them with rough collies (Lassie-type) to give a pretty and more consistent look.  Then the dogs got too big, so they crossed them with Pomeranians to make them little again.  

It's interesting to note that working dogs in Shetland today are not "Shetland Sheepdogs," as the working drive has very much diminished in the breed.  If you want sheep work done anywhere in the world, get a border collie.  Modern Shelties are mostly funny little companions.

To this day, purebred Shelties sometimes throw back to a bigger-boned collie-type (Merridog and Roo were both that type) or a weedier Pom-type (Pickles Marie was one of those).  

Niki recommended using a 1" slicker brush to help water (and soap) penetrate
through the double fur coat down to the skin.

Modern breeders are always striving to create a bigger and more spectacular hair-coat on their Shelties, and that's what the show ring (and the money) rewards.  Probably unintentionally (at least at first), this meant that they were emphasizing breeding to dogs with thyroid disorders, since those dogs tend to grow abnormally luxurious coat.

The result is that a vast majority of Shetland Sheepdogs are diagnosed with thyroid malfunction as adults.  Foxie still doesn't have it, which is kind of surprising, but almost all of our previous Shelties did.

Finally out of the tub, time for the blow-dryer,  Niki's dryer was so much faster than the
little hand-held I've used on my other dogs!

We still aren't sure what's up with Pooh Bear, metabolically speaking.  The foster home stopped giving him anti-seizure meds about a month ago.  On veterinary advice, we've also stopped giving him thyroid meds for the next month.  

The bath and subsequent brushing revealed some skin problems under all that fur, too.

Because he is still so overweight (34 pounds post-bath, he lost a whole pound of hair and dirt!), his thyroid is still screwy, so we're going to give everything time to reset, and then we'll get a blood panel done.

After the drying comes the brushing, this time with a rake-type tool.

Pooh's experience as a show dog means that none of this process was new to him, but you can see from the photos that it's not his favorite thing.  A note from his breeder told us that he didn't enjoy showing, which is the reason they retired him after he finished his title.

We generally clip lower legs to minimize the mud that dogs drag into the house every day.

 

As soon as the spa treatment was finished, Pooh bounced around and quacked and twirled happily.  

He's been here almost a week now, and already he is discovering that his life here on the farm is only a little bit like the old life, and he seems very pleased with the changes.