Maggie relaxing in my daughter's chair after today's grooming. I can't help but notice after each grooming these days, her once pure black muzzle gets grayer and grayer. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.” Franklin P. Jones
Travels With Maggie
My traveling companion, Maggie, is a cocker spaniel with thick, fast growing fur that needs to be trimmed and washed every 10 days so as to keep both her ear infections and allergies at a minimum.
My previous cocker could go six weeks between groomings, and when I owned her I had a steady paycheck coming in weekly and a great groomer who charged only $25.
The cost of sending Maggie to a groomer these days ranges from a low of $42 to a high of $53 – and I live on a pretty low fixed income. So Maggie gets home, or shall we say RV-groomed since that is our home.
When the weather is warm enough, and when my RV, Gypsy Lee is hooked up to electricity, it’s an outdoor job. I sit on my RV step with Maggie in front of me and the clippers plugged into an outdoor outlet. The wind usually blows the clipped hair away.
On cold days, I sit on my toilet seat with Maggie propped up a bin in front of me and then sweep and vacuum the hair up afterward. It takes about three days before the last few pieces are finally discovered and discarded.
One or the other of those procedures works everywhere except my oldest daughter’s home, where I have no place to plug in Gypsy Lee. Today, since it was too cool to groom Maggie outside, I used the small downstairs half bath as my grooming saloon. I sat on the toilet and put Maggie on a stool in front of me. With the door closed, her cut fur was confined and didn’t get all over my daughter’s house. Clean up was much easier than in my RV.
I keep the grooming routine as simply as possible, using only two clippers blades for the job, a No. 10 for her back, throat, face and ears, and a No. 4 for the lower body and legs. Neither Maggie nor I have much patience, so on a scale of 1 (great) to 10 (disastrous), the outcome is usually in the above 5 range.
Today’s might have actually been a 4. But that’s not what pleases me. Every single time I have groomed her in the past, which is over 200 times in the nearly 12 years I’ve had her, today was the first time I didn’t have to fight her to get her right ear groomed. It has been extremely sensitive all her life.
I suspect the reason for her cooperation today when I was working on that ear is the new medicine that she was put on two weeks ago to fight her most recent ear infection. That infection was an extremely painful one for her, so much so that if it couldn’t be controlled it might have ended with me losing her.
I felt like shouting for joy when I finished. Maggie just wanted her treat. She always gets one afterward – whether she’s been good or not.
Pat Bean's blog 
What a pretty girl!! We had black cockers when I was a kid. I don’t remember the first one, Peggy, but Sooty was my buddy. My folks got her from a family who had all boys, and she was afraid of men. We had all girls. I remember having to clip her hair too. In the summer, it was out on the front porch. In the winter (in Vermont) wasn’t done as much, mostly brushing, because she wanted as much fur as possible to keep warm. I know cockers are susceptible to ear problems, but I don’t remember her having them. She liked to sleep behind my grandmother’s chair. I think she was in the 12-14 year old range when my mother decided she needed to be put to sleep. She was mostly blind and yelped going up and down stairs. Even though I was sad about it, I agreed with my mother. Can’t stand to see an animal suffer. That’s why I keep getting after my neighbors for leaving their dogs alone in the yard to bark all day. They are lonely and not safe. People think I hate dogs, but totally not true. Just trying to look out after them when their owners don’t.
My previous cocker didn’t have ear problems like Maggie. She died at 15, which is when I rescued Maggie from an abused background. She was afraid of her shadow when I got her. Today she is the queen and I am her pet servant.
Such joy in having your dog feel better. I thought when Izzy, my elderly dog did not dance or eat breakfast two mornings ago, that I had received my message that it was time. You can imagine my joy to find out much later in the day, that she did not like the dog food. Her dances the past two mornings bring me such joy.
So glad it was just that Izzy didn’t like the food Kristi. Our pets give us so much joy, but then we pay for it when we outlive them.