Poor Schnoodle. She is so old and shaggy. My mom got Schnood from the shelter in 1998 where she was called Nicky (since then she’s had many a name). She was a full grown dog, albeit a fairly young dog. So even if she were only a year old when she came into our family, she would now be 13-14! That’s pretty old in dog years. I’m not sure of the current conversion rate, but somewhere between 70 and 98 dog years old.

Britton with Schnoodle-Doo in the kitchen

Schnooter Mcgavin has lost most of her teeth, she’s partially blind and mostly deaf. She also has some sort of tumor growing under her arm. But she’s still a happy dog. She sleeps all day long. Looks forward to her food and loves her walks. So, quality of life, I’d say is pretty good for old Noodle.

But one thing she hates is hair cuts. We think maybe our foreign exchange student, Kosei, from a few years ago traumatized Doody when we left him alone with her to bathe and shave. Ever since then she hates scissors. Nickerdoodle hates even being in the same vicinity as scissors. She runs away and turns her head a lot anytime she sees the choppers coming by. Which makes it practically impossible to cut the hair on her head! (Don’t believe me? Try trimming someone’s hair as they wiggle around every time the scissors come remotely close. Seriously, running with scissors is probably safer!)

Schnicker’s not like most dogs who shed, which is a good thing, but also means that her hair just keeps growing, and growing…and growing. Until she looks like a big rastafarian with a mess of matted hair and crusty eyes. So, we finally gave old Doodle a shave. We sat in the greenhouse where it was all warm and the air was still. The chickens were a little mad that we were in their space, and Kitty was very interested in us. Strudlemeister wasn’t happy about it, but she let us cut her after a lot of work. But in the end after a huge pile of hair, she now looks and feels so much better. Schnooters was running around like a happy little puppy with all that hair off.

Still a little shaggy for Snoodles, but mucho mejor!