Extreme Makeover - Gordon Setter Edition

Next weekend is my Canine Freestyle competition. We have been practicing a lot and I hope that we will get good scores. Barbara said that is important that I look particularly beautiful (probably because she will be looking spectacularly un-beautiful and she needs me to distract people from looking at her) because I will be the only Gordon Setter there and I have to be a good representative of my breed. I knew that this meant extreme dog grooming torture.

This morning Barbara drove Ambrose and me in the dog-crate-on-wheels up to VA to visit my Aunt Karen, who is my breeder, and my biological mom, Misty.



Misty is 10 years old but still quite active and playful and of course very beautiful and good. Whenever I get to see her I always give her a little kiss on the face. She is the only adult dog that I do that to. I am very respectful of my mom.



Misty is a good hostess and let us run all around her house and yard. She was very tolerant of goofy Ambrose who brought all his cooties along and left them everywhere. I noticed that she was carefully marking over all his cootiefyed pee-mail.



After some good play we went down to the special dog grooming torture chamber. Look at the array of evil implements that were laid out to be used on me.



Here is my before picture. I am all tufty and my feet are like bedroom slippers.



My Aunt Karen is quite skilled with dog grooming torture of Gordon Setters. She managed to snip or clip every hair on my body. She was very gentle with me and never let the clippers get hot and never poked me with the shears. I was pretty good through most of the torture, but I did get fussy when she worked on my back feet and when she got close to my ears. Aunt Karen gave me lots of breaks to relax and Barbara gave me liver treats when I behaved myself.



Ta-da! Here is the after photo. I think that I look pretty spiffy.



And I am very happy to have survived all the torture in one piece.



You can see where I get my good looks. That is me in the front and Misty in the back.