Grooming Your Pomeranian

I get a lot of questions from people about Penny's general care. Seeing her can be a bit of a shock - especially in the fall/winter, she is a giant ball of red hair. This time of year is what we call The Big Shed, where she throws off her winter undercoat and keeps a light coat of hair on top of her normal undercoat. What this means is many a hair tumbleweed rolling about my house - the dustbuster is a must.

I do a few things to keep Penny looking spic and span:
- Brushings every Tues, Thurs and Sat. I start at her butt and work forward. On her, the mats seem to develop most behind her ears, so sometimes while we're on the couch I'll work on those during off-days grooming wise.
- A serious, professional grooming twice a year. One of these is a shaving appointment. In a couple of weeks, I'll call our buddy Joe and we'll have our annual fight over how much hair to leave on the dog. Our normal appointment is just a trim and bath, however.
- Baths every 6-8 weeks. We usually know when it's time because Chris and I will look at each other and say, "Geez, she's starting to smell like a hamster." I gave her a bath last night because I wanted her to look good (and be moderately sanitized) for the vet today.

Why are you doing this to me? THE HUMANITY!

Bathing a Pom is an activity in itself. Now I'm not saying that this is overly strenuous - my cashier at Trader Joe's was telling me about his two Newfoundlands and I instantly took back any whining that I have ever done about Penny's care. But it does take a LONG TIME to get her wet. Poms were originally bred to 30-40 pounds to act as sled dogs in the Alps (thank you, Animal Planet!) so they have the same kind of fur structure that Huskies, etc have. Layers and layers upon layers of hair. Just getting her to the point where she's wet enough to shampoo is a struggle. Luckily, Penny is so sweet and good-natured that she takes it all with just some heavy sighing. After all this, I do take about an hour to two hours and blow her dry. It makes such a big difference in the condition of her hair after the bath and keeps her looking as fluffy as she should! And that's how we groom our Pomeranian...just in case you wanted to know!