On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 21:08:08 -0800, "Beth In Alaska"
wrote:

Snipped great story about jail therapy dog visit!! i've been trying to
figure out where pirate would like to go the most when he gets certified!!
Jail sounds fun!

I'm not sure if fun is the word for it, but so far it's good. Zeke
and I did mostly nursing home visits, and with Music I've been trying
to decide, too, where to go - I wanted to do something different. But
the hospitals in our rural county don't have pet therapy, and I'm
tired of having to drive an hour to everything. A few weeks ago I got
an email from a hospice company that has patients in nursing homes and
assisted living facilities in our town, and they were looking for
teams to visit them. It's close, and we'll start doing that if they
can ever arrange to get my TB test done. So since nursing homes seem
to be where the need is, I'm kind of glad we're doing the jail visits
because it is something different.

You kind of have a choice with hairy dogs in my experience (1 keeshond, 1
samoyed and lots of opinions of others who own same) - you can do a really,
really thorough grooming once a month or six weeks, or you can do a quick
brush out three or four times a week. I'm of the less frequent groomers
since the kidlet was born- Tok gets a heavy duty rake out about every six
weeks. I try to pay attention to "mattable" areas in between - behind ears
mostly, as I've had to cut out mats behind his ears if i let things go to
long. Even when i do, no one ever notices. Toklats hair is as you
describe - the dead hair doesn't shed out all over - you have to brush it
out. (I'm considering a furminator! hope its appropriate for his coat
type) You'd actually be surprised at how little coat maintenance you really
need to do except during a big shed - and you'll know because you'll feel
the hair clumping.

I'd definitely be a less frequent groomer - I haven't been very good
at grooming the Borzoi and they do tend to mat. I figured collies'
coats would be similar to the Borzoi's, but apparently not, which is
good news. There may be a rescue collie in my future some day.

Kaviks hair DID shed out all over. And the only place he ever got matted
was behind his ears also.

I fostered a Samoyed once and was surprised at how very different his
coat was from the Siberians'.

Mustang Sally