Nadi (my dog) finally gets a haircut, before and after

I had a go at cutting my dog Nadi's hair myself for a few months and I wish I could say that it had been a success but it wasn't. After talking to a friend of mine who is a professional dog groomer I found out that unless you are willing to invest hundreds of dollars in grooming equipment, the cheap stuff that they sell at pet stores just doesn't hack it. I found that out the hard way. I was able to do reasonably well on my own but it took me absolute ages to get the job done.

Nadi is the type of dog that doesn't shed, which is a wonderful thing really. I've had dogs in the past that shed and never needed haircuts but the flip side of this situation is that your house is constantly filled with dog hair. It just gets everywhere and no matter how much you clean up, it just seems to find its way back. Nadi is the first non-shedding dog that I have ever owned, and the only downside of non-shedders is that their hair will just grow indefinitely, just like yours would, if you don't get regular haircuts done.

It took me two days to do a half-assed job of it because I am not trained and the equipment that I had was just a set of $20 clippers, which were the only ones that the store had. I wasn't being stingy, there just aren't any other options on a retail level.

This was right around the time that I was actually kind of proud of my work and Nadi was pretty willing to play along although she does get a bit problematic when the clippers get near her eyes, which I suppose is understandable.

I think the most difficult part was the feet though because it is really tough to get between the toes and pads on the bottom of her feet.

Fast-forward about a month and the hair length was getting a bit out of control. She probably looks miserable in this pic but that is actually her favorite place to sit in my house and she is just sleepy.

A big part of the reason why I decided to get the professionals involved is because of the fact that we are entering hot season here in Vietnam and even very short walks were resulting in her overheating and simply panting like crazy. When we would return to my condo she would just move from place to place on the floor, trying to find a cool spot to cool her body down. When she started hanging out in the bathroom on the cool tile I knew it was time to do something about this because she was uncomfortable all the time just like you would be if it was 100 degrees outside and you were forced to always wear a fur coat.

Once again, she looks miserable but she is just sleepy and that is her favorite place to sit. This is not a great picture because Nadi is actually quite cute. She looks like a rat baby in that picture though. I took her to a party where she received a bunch of treats from me and many other people to the point where I had to tell the other guests to stop feeding her because I know she will eat until she throws up - that's just the kind of doggo she is.

The bar looks filthy, but that is only because it almost always is filthy. It is the epitome of a dive bar and I would be surprised if they mop the floor once a week. It doesn't matter much to me because I am never on the floor. In the foreground you can see another dog named "Sleepy" and this is one of the only dogs whose presence Nadi will tolerate. Trust me, it took some time for this to be the case. Generally speaking, Nadi does not care for the presence of any other dogs and never has.

There she is again, in roughly the same spot, getting for food from someone that is at the buffet line. I think this was about 20 minutes before I made "last call" for Nadi and she received no more food. In the time between I think she ate about 3x as much as she would normally get in a day and for the most part I never give her human food anyway.

Overall I think the shop did a pretty good job and while I think she looks cuter with her hair a bit longer, this wasn't a fashion choice. It is simply too hot outside for her to have fur for the next 3 months. We'll grow her coat out a bit in the cooler months, which unfortunately isn't very many of the months that we ever have in this country.