Give me courage

[ChickensGoMeh]

Jasper has turned my lawn in to a boggy swamp. Now that the snow has finally melted, the mud is unbelievable. He is a cocker/springer cross, 7 months old, and has these 'flags' of fur on his legs as well as long hair around his feet etc. I have scissors. I'm thinking that if I trim this fur, it'll reduce some of the mud he is covering the house in. But I'm scared I'll make him lopsided. Does anyone have any tips?

No advice (I'm the world's worst hair cutter - I once gave my boyfriend a haircut by tying his hair into teeny tiny bunches all over and measuring 10cms on each one before cutting and the dds won't let me anywhere near their hair now they are old enough to speak!). Luckily Mouse has very short fur.

But loads of luck!

Oh, and don't forget Jasper will a) not care if he's lopsided and b) will grow back whatever sins you commit

My Spaniel often has very laughable trendy foothair styles!

Your garden sounds like mine. I'm just accepting the mud. God, it's depressing though. I don't know if the children will ever be able to play out here again. I'm not sure clipping will make any difference, but as pp says, Jasper won't care!

I have a humungous bath towel by the back door: Mouse has to walk across it, gets stopped and has his paws wiped each time he goes out at the moment.

He has a special 'oh god not this again' look of resigned boredom, specially reserved for paw wiping.

Right. He tolerated it reasonably well. It cost me a lot of treats and a cut finger (bastarding scissors), but I managed to cut away a lot of the excessively long mud catching hair. Now he looks weird, though. Like his legs end in stumps. I've cut off his retro cool '70's flares.

Think joggers with elasticated cuffs?

Well done.

I need to cut toddler DD's hair. I might practise on the dog first - he'll be much easier. I do love his flares though!

Yes! Like he's wearing really bad jogging bottoms. He keeps looking at his feet in bafflement. I think I might have to bite the bullet and book him in with a groomer. He has a lot of long fur between his toes etc and stuff gets caught in it. We live opposite woodland, and he's always going cross country and coming back filthy (but deliriously happy ). I have heard tell that groomers will shave his pads out, trim all of his random long bits and even pluck his ears (although that sounds a bit ouchy to me). I'm not brave enough to cut too close with the scissors in case I catch his skin. And I need to pluck up the courage to trim his, er, nob hair again. Otherwise it mocks me, always sporting a lovely drip of urine. Nice

I have piles of towels by the door as well. But because I have two quite low-slung dogs with no mud flaps, I find it easiest to turn them upside down and tackle it that way, so at least I can see all the mud that needs to come off, rather than have it wiped around the house.

I hate the Mud Months.

Did the same to my Goldie recently & it helped keep her a bit cleaner & easier to dry off.

She gives me that look too Elibean, usually after 3 limbs are wiped. She can't last till 4.

I second the pile of towels too, only way to survive the months.

Small price to pay though, it'll soon be spring!

I keep contemplating a groomer too, but do quite like his 'natural look'. We have lots of hair between the pads too. Does Jasper have a docked tail? Rico's isn't docked and is permanently bloody at the end as he catches it daily during his merry jaunts into gorse bushes. I don't know if grooming would help with that problem! He doesn't seem bothered, of course.

He has been docked. He gets really long curly hair at the end (think corkscrew pig-stylee) which catches on bloody everything. I'm forever pulling twigs/wrappers/labels out of it. I suppose a groomer will cut off his curly bit

The supposed "reason" for chopping off tails was because they got damaged in gorse etc. My spaniel gets more caught in his ears than his tail. Why did Chickens buy one which had had bits lopped off? Docking has been illegal for years.

My dog has docking papers as he is a working breed In fact, he was probably puppy farmed and I was naive enough to fall for a sob story. He also had his dew claws ripped out, and one has since grown back. I would not have set out to buy an illegally docked puppy.

Yes, working ones can be docked if very young and under certain circumstances, can't they? Anyway, it was just a query. All the sprinters I meet round here are docked. Funnily enough, his ears don't get it so bad.

'springers', obviously, but sprinters quite apt too...

Yes, Jasper's papers state that he has been bred to work. Utter tosh, of course, as the woman we took him from claimed that she was a loving pet owner who couldn't keep him. I did ask the vet to look at his papers, but as he said they could have been the papers for any pup, there was no way of knowing for sure if it was done legally. Fortunately, he doesn't appear to have any problems with it, but when I see Cocker's with full tails I always feel a bit sad that his was chopped off.

Our neighbour's cocker went for a (proper ) haircut the other day - she suddenly looks, and behaves, ten years younger. Bouncing around, running, playing - guess her big thick coat was too heavy for her!

Wish a haircut did that for me