Recently I’ve been watching dog grooming videos on YouTube. Gross ones. They often go like this: the groomer has been given a filthy, bug-infested dog. The coat is so long and matted that the dog has been forced to urinate and defecate into the mats. Sometimes the mats have woven together, so the dog can barely move its legs to walk. Then the groomer does miracles with a clipper, scissors, and shampoo, and what’s left is a much more comfortable, much happier, shaved-down dog.
Every time I watch one of these videos, I am grateful again to my friend Colleen. She worked miracles, too.
Colleen was the one who showed me what combing my dog really means. It means “comb down to the skin”. It doesn’t mean just rake the surface of the coat. It means making sure that teeth of the comb actually touch the skin all the way through every stroke. And she showed me what to do if the comb can’t get through the coat when the teeth are down to the skin. In curly Irish Water Spaniels, that meant brush first with a slicker brush to slightly straighten the curls. Then use the comb is short strokes, and if encountering a mat, working gradually backwards from the end of the fur into the mat to break it up. She had lots of other grooming tricks, too, involving detangling spray, fingers, and, rarely, scissors.
I still comb down to the skin, every week, almost without fail. Because Colleen taught me to, and because she told me what would likely happen if I let the grooming go. And that’s what I see in those videos: what happens when you let the grooming go. That’s a road I never went down because Colleen was my friend.
There is, of course, a lot more to grooming an Irish Water Spaniel than brushing and combing. They have to be trimmed because the coat will grow long and can turn into mats and dreadlocks. People can trim their IWS any way they want, but if you’re showing your IWS in conformation, then they are most often trimmed a certain way. Colleen taught me how to do that, too. And when I was done trying it at home, I’d bring my Cooper to her house, and she’d “clean up” my work “just a little”. What that actually meant was that she’d redo it. Which was fine. She knew so much more than I did, and learned more from her every time.
Sometimes Colleen joked that she was obligated to help me. Which was nonsense, of course. But she did help get me into “this mess”, as she once put it, by playing a crucial role in getting me into Irish Water Spaniels in the first place.
I’ve told this story before on my blog. But basically, after meeting Colleen at the Rose City Classic dog show, and a long conversation with Colleen at her home, she decided that I could possibly be good IWS-owner material. So she referred me to Rosemary, who needed a buyer for an IWS boy. Because of Colleen’s referral, we got Cooper. And because we got Cooper, a spit-fire of an active, curious, always-wanting-to-be-doing-something boy, we needed help. And Colleen helped us. Big time.
Besides all the grooming help, Colleen also had me bring Cooper over to her house to “play with” (aka, be taught manners by) Colleen’s older IWS girls, Guinness and Bailey. Colleen congratulated me on my brags about Cooper and listened to my frustrations with him. She made observations of how other IWS folks sometimes deal with issues, helping me see solutions I hadn’t considered, without ever telling me what to do. She invited me to dinner numerous times or just over for a visit. She showed me the beaded jewelry she made, and gave me a collar for Cooper beaded to look like camouflage. She talked to me at parties when I was feeling shy. She made me feel welcome when I didn’t feel worth being welcomed.
But there’s more. Because of Colleen’s referral (along with all the other folks who helped get Cooper to us), our whole life changed. Everything about it changed. New dog. New equipment, including multiple crates, bowls, buckets, leashes, collars, whistles, wingers, bumpers, combs, brushes, scissors, treats, treat bags, platforms, etc., etc., etc. New-to-us car, one in which we stow the dog safely in a crate and carry all that other dog stuff. New weekend activities replaced the old ones. And lots of new and wonderful people to do them with.
And not the least of all this, because of Colleen and Cooper, I started this blog.
After I moved away, Colleen kept in touch with texts, email, calls, and private messages. Always she said, “I miss you guys.” She was there for us, even across space and time.
The last time I saw Colleen in person was too long ago, at a local Irish Water Spaniel specialty show. She brought her girl to be shown, but didn’t quite have the strength to groom her dog. At one point, I picked up Colleen’s scissors, and started working on shaping that coat into a show coat. She observed, “Well, this is a switch, isn’t it?” Yes, it was.
I’d have been happy to keep working on her dog, but then, one by one, several other folks who love Colleen joined us, and each of us picked up the scissors to work a bit on her dog. All of us had been helped at one time or another by Colleen. And all of us wanted to return the help. But you know, there’s no way all of us together could ever have repaid Colleen adequately for everything she did for each of us.
Colleen died a short time ago. She was my friend, and in a world where there are just not enough true friends, I will miss her.
The Cooper Project 