Rosie, my blue heeler cross border collie turned 14 in January, but you would not know it.
Yesterday she scored a home visit by the dog clipper lady and got her summer tick clip, a bit late in the season but it’s been quite a cool November and December on and off in Australia and as Rosie is an old but sprightly dog, I left it a bit later.
Plenty of brown ticks around till end of March around here and they are vicious.
Because we spent a lot of time with Rosie when she was young, her puppies training went very smoothly and she learnt to be calm when handled by goodwilled strangers such as dog wash and dog clip ladies.
Though her breed makes her more amenable and Rosie was an easy subject, how to train puppy has to involve being respectful of trustworthy strangers and confident when being handled.
You cannot start too early to introduce into puppies training the practice of being around strange people of all ages dogs, cats and other potential companions.
The dog clip lady said that Rosie had definitely dropped several dress sizes after her haircut and certainly my dog looked pleased. After the dog clip she was bouncing around like a newly shorn sheep to the disgust of my 8 year old Dobe, who cannot bear for anyone else to be the centre of attention.
