I guess it's not particularly hard to know it's hot outside. The AC is running...all. the. time. There's no air in the air because the humidity level is 1238123791%. The rose bush in the back yard gave up and stopped blooming. The grass...and even the scrubby little clover...has stopped growing. The weatherman can't give a forecast without talking about "heatandhumidity." And my hair is curling like a crazy 80s perm. These things give me a pretty good idea that it's hot outside.
But here's how I really know it's hot: my dog has given up shedding in favor of....molting?!
He always sheds. I furminate him, on average, about once a week all year round...so I'm no stranger to the phenomenon. Even with all the furminating, I still manage to vacuum up a canister or two of rogue fur every week. Shedding is not news in my house.
But this is totally different. The fur is now coming off of him in great, huge tufts. I can almost see it working its way out of his hindquarters and a gentle tug will pull out a whole handful. His coat is still healthy and sleek; it's not like he's balding, so I'm not really worried. I guess his body is just getting rid of every bit of "extra" it can so he can make it through this summer without spontaneously combusting. Poor guy.
When your dog goes into survival mode, you just know it's hot.
3 comments:
Love the new, sleek look!
Lucy molts too. We try to brush her more regularly, but have never furminated. Not even sure how to go about that one.
Drink lots of lemonade and invest in some powerful hair tonic (I can recommend a few). Stay cool as you are.
Yeah, I'm super pleased with this particular template. It's clean...
The "furminator" is kind of like a little hand-held rake. It pulls out the undercoat without damaging the top layer. You can get HUGE masses of fur out of your animal. Marshall feels like a million bucks afterward...he actually tolerates it better than normal brushing. It's a spendy device...but it's worth it for cutting down on the amount of work I have to do to keep the house at some reasonable level of "clean"...
As with Marshall, our cat George sheds regularly. But a couple of weeks back he was shedding A LOT! He was also hacking a bit and what we mistook for hairballs...so we took him to the vet. He is allergic...the heat has stressed his system. His lungs (cats have funny lungs) were stressed, that is why the coughing. And his fur falling out, stress from the heat. The vet gave him a cortisone shot...which has worked well. We keep him indoors as much as we can. And the shedding is now at a minimum. Sidenote, the same thing happened with my sisters cat...the cortisone shot made an amazing difference...
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