High maintenance hairstyles

Georgie and Snowy both love to roll in noxious substances. As far as we can be we are organic farmers and gardeners so we don't have any truly toxic chemicals here or anything, but the most deadly chemical known to insects doesn't come close to the smell that a three week old drowned rat can emit. Or fox droppings. Even seemingly innocent sheep manure can get pretty pongy when rubbed into a poodle's fur, unnoticed because it's the same colour, and allowed to fester for a week.

Eventually though, Georgie can't hide any longer. With that aroma the neighbours half a kilometer away were asking what she'd done. Georgie protests about having a bath, but we can't hear her over her smell.

Making her best appealing eyes, or singular eye in her case, doesn't work either...

and it's back into the shampooing, rinsing and drying routine. People think non-shedding dogs are low maintenance but this is not true. Georgie also gets a haircut every few weeks otherwise her early 80's Kylie Minogue hairstyle clouds her vision and she can't see. All those curls also get quite matted in carrying out farm dog duties although in Georgie's case these only involve following us at a distance, barking at benign things and checking out the clearance under fences. Most of her time these days is spent monitoring the warmth of the fire on her mat, only looking up occassionally when possible treats are detected.