Where did our Teddy Bear go?

This morning we played with our darling little Teddy Bear, his hair about 5 inches long.  Yesterday, our groomer told us he was too matted to trim and that she would have to shave him.  Like heck I would allow her to do such a ghastly thing to my precious Enzo.  I shrugged off her exaggeration of the hair situation, bought a "rake" to de-mat our little teddy bear and Tim and I spent 2 hours raking through his hair to get the matting loose near his skin.  He thought it was a game and had a jolly time biting at the rake.  This morning I proudly walked him into the PetCo by my office for his 2nd opinion grooming appointment.  I wasn't going to back the hall of shame, so this place knew nothing of our flaws.

The Petco lady took one look at him and said, "Oh boy.  We've got some heavy matting going on here."  I clearly explained that we had taken care of that last night with the rake tool, which I presented to her with confidence.  She showed me a number of places where she couldn't get her massive comb through and said it wouldn't be fair to him to put him through that much pain and the only way to remedy the situation would be to shave him.  I clarified, "So, you can leave like an inch right?"  "No maam.  He'll be shaved much shorter than that.  You'll need to stick with a 6 week schedule for grooming if you want to keep his coat this long and I would suggest a different collar and daily brushing."  I gazed at my Teddy Bear for a longer than normal amount of time, put my hypothetical tail between my legs, apologized to Enzo telepathically and went back to work.  Shame. Dog owner shame.

This is what I saw when I walked in to pick up my fuzzy buddy.  I might have screamed out loud.  If it wasn't for his big eyes, I wouldn't have been convinced he was mine.  The lady immediately said, "It'll grow back!  We think he looks cute."

Dude came home from school and took one step back from the door, thinking we had a strange dog in our house.  He giggled for 30 minutes and said his brain kept telling him that Enzo was wet.  Reagan acted scared and had no idea who he was, Tim just pouted when Enzo jumped up on him but of course doused him with fatherly love and I have spent the night covering him with our warmest blankets.  He is so cold.  And tiny.  And really humiliated I suspect.  In fact, he was just downstairs barking at himself in the glass door.  Of course he doesn't know who that strange dog staring at him is.  He's a quarter of the dog he used to be.

Bad dog parents.  Bad.  Sorry buddy.  It won't happen again.