Fleurp - a before and after

Because of Fleurp's annual springtime anemia, and my attempts to figure out what on earth is going on and - or at the very least - prevent it, I decided to groom the living daylights out of Fleurp the minute she started molting.  It can take weeks from the first sign of her losing her winter coat until her anemia shows up, so I wanted to prevent her from ingesting as much fur as I can - since this is really the only difference in her life.

First, the Before:

February 5th

Feb 9 - morning pre-furminator

February 9th post furminator

February 16th

So I had been doing my best to get as much excess fur off her as I could, but she is NOT a fan of the furminator nor any other grooming device I have. Each session would end her being upset at me at best and nipping at me was not a rare occasion. She won't 'bite' but she will leave a dent in the skin with her teeth. Fair enough. I'd hate it if someone grabbed me and forced me to put up with what she had to go through.

This year I wasn't going to be deterred. I was amazed how much fur I was able to take off her and yet she still had a ton that needed to come off, so I made an appointment with a local groomer to help. I would have shaved her myself but she hates the clippers even more than the furminator. She has had so much blood drawn every year to check her RBC that I can't blame her on that one either. I asked to watch and the groomer had me help. We used her muzzle on and off. He tried to direct me to hold her a certain way and I explained if we let her have a paw free that she would make us pay for it.

The groomer was going for beauty which takes longer. After a while, I told him to be more concerned with getting as much fur off as we could and don't worry about pretty.

As an end result, we have this as the After:

I am probably going to try to clean up her armpits and furminator her a couple more times to pull out anything else that is loose. Paws crossed this works.