Some mornings the whole family piles in at once. Bertie, Bettie and Maggie are three black Toy Poodles from the same house – dad, mum and their girl – all booked in together for full grooms. In the photos below that's Bertie on the left, Maggie in the middle and Bettie on the right. Six weeks had gone by since their last visit, and a Poodle coat does not sit still for that long... so every one of them was ready for a proper going-over!
Before
After
Three At Once
Bertie and Bettie have been coming to us for years now, and Maggie has been in since she was a pup – she's getting on for eighteen months, which in Poodle terms makes her less of a baby and more of a teenager. Booking the three of them together turns a single groom into a little production line: bath, dry, clipper, tidy, and then on to the next one. It sounds like hard work, and it is, but a family that all knows the routine makes for a lovely morning.
The "before" you can scrub to above tells the story. Six weeks of growth on a Toy Poodle is a surprising amount of coat – soft and shaggy and starting to lose its shape, the faces disappearing behind the fluff. A full groom takes each of them right back to a neat, even finish: tight clean coat, rounded faces, ears tidied, feet and nails done. Three small dogs go in looking like they've been dragged through a hedge backwards and come out looking like the show ring.
Angels On The Table
I'll happily report that all three were complete angels and thoroughly relaxed about the whole thing – no drama, no fuss, just three good dogs who know exactly what a groom is and have decided they rather like it. Bertie is the steady one. Maggie, the teenager, takes it all in her stride. And Bettie… Bettie is the one who craves the attention. She's bouncy as anything, like a little kangaroo, and the moment you so much as think about sitting down she's found your lap and curled up in it before you've landed.
Sit down for half a second and Bettie's already in your lap... we're fairly sure she books in for the cuddles and treats the haircut as a bonus!
A Poodle's coat is a single, dense, curly layer that behaves much more like human hair than a typical dog's. It barely sheds – which is why so many people love the breed – but that's a double-edged thing: instead of dropping out, the dead hair stays woven into the curl, so it keeps growing and keeps tightening. Left to its own devices it carries on getting longer and starts to mat at the roots. A full groom every four to six weeks resets the whole coat and keeps it comfortable rather than letting it turn into felt.
It's a satisfying thing, finishing a Poodle. The breed is built for a crisp, sculpted outline, so once the coat's off and the face is rounded out you really see the dog underneath. Bertie came up smart and sharp; Maggie, all teenage cheek, looked like she knew exactly how good she looked.
As it happens, Maggie isn't the only one of her litter we see – two of her brothers, Frodo and Freddie, come to us as well, just from different homes. It's a funny thing knowing three pups from the same litter, all growing up in different houses and all turning up on our table. Same curls, three different little characters.
Three happy Poodles, one very tidy family, and a lapful of Bettie to see us through the morning. Bertie, Bettie and Maggie – thank you for being such good company. See you all in a few weeks!
Carrie x