the furry kids

If you follow my Twitter (@antognoli), you may have noticed the other day that I was freaked out because a neighbor asked us if we let Maurice run around in the woods near our house. We said no, the dogs aren't allowed to run out there. Well, our neighbor replied that he saw something that looked "Just like him" (pointing toward a shaggy Maurice) out in the woods the last few mornings! Could we have a resident bear? I know bears live in the woods, but wouldn't think that there would be enough of them in the DC suburbs for a bear to survive. But... I've been keeping my eyes peeled ever since.

Which brings me to my next point: there will be no more mistaking of Maurice for a bear for a little while, anyway. He got his annual haircut, and you can see the before and after in the photo above. Frida's in there with him because I realized that I didn't have a photo of the two of them together and it was about time we rectified that.

So behold, my fuzzy children, and revel in their cuteness!

Metamorphosis - Sasquatch to Spider Monkey

Because the weather is getting warmer (until this weekend, it was!), we decided to give Maurice his first major haircut of the year. It's at this time when people start to ask us if we got a new dog, and what happened to that shaggy one we used to walk. Or, rather than speak, they simply gasp with shock and awe that there was actually a dog underneath all that fur. He is indeed the same creature we adopted a little over 5 years ago. Here is a before and after photo, side by side for comparison:



But, because I could have used a dog double, I will back it up with the process:



















See the full slideshow with lots more photos HERE. The first half are taken by me, and the first photo you see me in onward were taken by Andy.

We didn't actually leave that poof on the end of his tail, but we always joke about doing frou frou things with Maurice's fur because once, before we figured out that we did a better job grooming him than the groomers, we took him for a haircut. What we got back was this strange cross between a poodle and a... I don't even know. It was bad, so we just broke out the clippers and did it ourselves. And we've given him all his haircuts ever since.

So, now Maurice is spunky and full of energy, which means he is nagging me a whole lot more than normal. But that's okay, he'll be a lot happier once the hot weather hits... cause I'm sick of all this rain already!