This is not my beautiful dog…

East Kildonan

I think the groomer may have given us back the wrong dog.

When I took Penelope the standard poodle for a haircut recently, her coat was admittedly overgrown. In fact, while awaiting an opening at the popular salon, we had to put the hair on her head up in a ponytail, just like a classic diva poodle. Penelope needed her coat trimmed and blown out for the winter.

My daughter didn’t want to risk any fur again getting into her eyes, so we instructed the groomer to style her head puff a little further back than is standard form. True, it was an abrogation of the classic poodle profile, but we thought it was practical. We also thought that a cheerful tail styling – which we call her “Christmas tail” every season – would make her holiday-ready, so we requested the groomer a cute tail fluff.

Prior to her coiffure, Penelope was a bit scary looking, since her curly coat, along with her exceptionally long poodle legs and extended torso, made her look like a hulking beast. To the uninitiated, she looked kind of frightening, especially when running up in gleeful welcome.

What greeted us after her salon visit did not look like our Penelope – more like a walking piece of carbon paper. It was a dog, sure enough, but one that was tall and thin with an almost humorously large chest (when viewed sideways) that now looked like she had swallowed a large dinner plate, from which her underbelly slanted upwards to a small waist the diameter of a drainpipe. She kind of conjured the vibe of a stair railing.

The fur on her lengthy tail was trimmed so short it looked like an animated rope, ending in what looked like a flower gone crazily to seed – which exponentially amplified any tail movement. The gauzy puff either trembles as if in a slight breeze or, when Penelope is really happy, it looks like a yarn bobble on the end of a wildly moving stick.

My daughter said it looks like the dangly thing on a deep-water angler fish.

Penelope’s clip is actually very artfully done. The groomer did an expert job, although her coat was shorter than expected. As for her head, her profile now suggests a slightly boxy military look – very sleek. But no worries – Penelope (if it’s really her) has a warm winter jacket we coax her into with a great deal of bread crusts.

I was half asleep one night when I was started awake by what I thought was some scurrying wildlife that had nightmarishly jumped up onto the bed. I soon realized that Penelope, deep in sleep, must have been happily dreaming, since her gauzy tail puff was wagging with the all the flurry of a cheer team’s frantically waving pom poms.

She must have been dreaming of good things. So here’s to a blessed new year, and happy holidays!