Molson is a majestic looking dog…most of the time. Alternately lion like with his ruff blowing in the breeze or deer like when a thunderstorm is booming. It all depends on his mood and what is happening around him. Just like our other children we have always told him how beautiful he is. And no…we weren’t lying to any of them! So he grew up knowing what a magnificent beast he was. And if you think I am kidding you should see how he puffs himself up when he walks by other dogs or someone compliments him.

He prances at times…wow… I had to back track on that line because there is no prancing any longer, he would if he could…just can’t. But what he use to do on quite a regular basis is strut .Head held high and placement of feet just so and by raising the front legs higher than usual the whole look became prance like. As any Golden owner will tell you this look can be destroyed in one second, all you have to do is watch them from the rear, they wiggle. Some even kind of look like they are walking at an angle and constantly have to recalibrate to keep going straight. Every single one of my Golden’s from Tawny, Dawn through Molson have and had, that pronounced wiggle, but only Molson learned to prance!

There have been very few instances in his life where this pride in his appearance has been gone or at least shaken. Unfortunately I think I was the one that instigated the reason one time. All for a good cause of course only it took a few days for him to realize it. For this we need a little background material. Since he was a wee pup, like any golden I know he adores the water. Any chance to swim he would take it.

Luckily for him he almost always had access to water, either through our county house we had and then through the pool we built in the city when the country was no longer an option. While the impetus for the pool was the rehabilitation of my husband post surgery the true raison d’être was the joy we knew Molson would feel when plunging into the pool. And yes he is the one who initiated the pool and at the time I couldn’t tell who got the tears in their eyes first my husband or me!

I firmly believe it was his swimming throughout his life that helped keep his hip dysplasia at bay. At least the swimming combined with no Frisbee jumping or allowing people to make him beg and stand on his hind legs. Then of course there was not letting children lean on his hips…but swimming was a huge major factor! Nothing gave us more joy than seeing him dog paddle circles around one of us in the pool. We loved it even more when we would see him saunter over to the pool when in the backyard by himself on a hot summer day and watch him take a little dip and do some laps just to cool off. He certainly knows his own mind.

Golden’s are prone to hotspots, festering sores that appear most often because the fur had been wet and unable to dry properly. Molson had them on occasion throughout his life usually in the summer when he was almost always in the water. When we built the pool Molsie was already getting older, he never ran into the pool launching him-self into the air before hitting the water as he had when he was younger, no…he would carefully walk daintily down the stairs into the water.

Even funnier was when he would prepare to leave the pool he would go up the steps leaving just his tummy submerged and just stand in the position with the water swirling around sometimes for minutes. We felt he was actually enjoying the water floating around his balls, or the remnant of his balls since he was neutered at 9 years of age (another story!).

Because of this worry about hotspots I decided to cut Molson’s hair so that it would dry much quicker. The only problem was that Molson had never been to the groomer and got nervous around anything that buzzed. I went out and bought a hair clipper along with a new pair of scissors and tried to give him a little trim. The attempt with the clipper lasted less than sixty seconds. Out came my trusty scissors, he has seen these scissors on occasion when he got a knot of hair under his ears, he would lie still until hair by hair that clump was released and gone.

Three hours later, my beautiful Golden was two green garbage bags full of hair lighter. Into the second hour I lost the feeling in my legs but Molson seemed to be in a dream zone so I kept on cutting. It could be that I would pat him between every snip so basically he was having a loving something he adored. Anyways at the end of this session my puppy looked about 20 pounds lighter, his body was no longer a beautiful golden but white with the exception of his face and ears that were left untouched. He no longer resembled a Golden more like a giant Shistoak on the spit because for some reason I cut him in tiers.

Molson seemed fine with this new reality until I took him out for his afternoon walk. Then it became crystal clear what he thought of this new doo. He was mortified, horrified and stupefied.! Embarrassed…you bet. The poor dog walked with his head down, when passing any of his four legged friends who were being walked at the same time across the street, he averted his head and looked down. If it wasn’t so apparent how he felt the whole situation would have been hysterically funny. The dog was pretending he wasn’t there. He didn’t bark to acknowledge his friends barks, he just slunk as he walked examining blades of grass with an exaggerated intensity.

He actually acted like this for close to three days. I was concerned but my husband kept reassuring me that as soon as he realized how much more comfortable he was all would be forgiven. Then like a light switch had been thrown Molson was back to himself. I think it was after he had gone swimming a couple of times and realized that he was dry minutes after leaving the pool and oh so cool. Suddenly he was no longer embarrassed he was proud and prancing once more. Take that you friend of mine with fur making you melt, my mommy loves me and sheared me like a lamb and I am better for it (ok he didn’t say that but if he knew what it meant he would have!). It also could be that he saw his other Golden friend Chloe shaved to a centimetre of her skin, not so cute either but much cooler.

So my boy was happy once more. And more to the point the next year I sheared him like a lamb making him once more resemble shishtaok there was no down time. He realized immediately that he would be cooler in minutes (actually hours, 3 hours once more). But he held his head high the second he stood up and shook.

Then there was the time we went out of town and left him with his favourite person besides his family of course and that was Martin the neighbourhood dog walker. Molson would go around with Martin for a walk a couple times a week. I called it his play date because off he would go firmly planted at the front right beside his beloved Martin. And since I am the one who walked him regularly we would often meet up with Martin and the gang and do the part of our walk with all of Molson’s buddies until Molson would indicate to me that he had enough and wanted me all to himself.

Anyways we went out of town; the kids were in camp so Molson stayed with Martin along with a few of his buddies. My puppy boy was going to sleep away camp as well! My instructions to Martin were, since Molson ate only when hungry was make sure Molson’s bowl was always full. Let him eat whenever he was hungry and away we went without a care in the world because our puppy boy was happy and didn’t give us a backward glance as we left. Three weeks later we went to pick up Molson at Martins house, a couple of blocks from ours and rang the bell.

Martin came to the door along with a very large Golden Retriever who was so fat he resembled a table. That large Golden was our Molson. After getting over the shock of seeing Molson so engorged and trying not to panic at the repercussions of such weight on his hips Martin told us he followed my feeding instructions. Unbeknownst to me because Molson was in the company of other dogs he felt the need to finish his bowl, every time it was filled. I guess it was a territorial thing because he would gobble up whatever Martin put in front of him. Well that explained the great weight expansion and also took a trip through the psyche of a dog who was once starved!

As Molson lumbered home you could tell he was not comfortable with his appearance, there was no prancing!  Prancing came back a few weeks and lost pounds later. He didn’t need to be put on a diet because as soon as he was home he resumed his normal eating habits as well as swimming, daily walks with mommy and the weight thankfully melted off of him.

Molsie’s pride seemed damaged once more a few months ago when incontinence hit. I tried my hardest to mitigate the situation (read blog #5 Apples and Cinnamon) by laying down special pads and washing him right after an accident all the while kissing and praising him and assuring him that everything was all right.

It wasn’t until I rigged up diapers that were light and easily opened to check if they needed changing that Molson relaxed was again happy. We realized that Molson had been embarrassed at his situation. Here is a dog that never had an accident in the house, ever and I say this with certainty because the only time he peed in the house this brilliant dog of ours went into the bathroom and lifted his leg and peed into the bathtub!

So for him to now have accidents it was obviously causing him distress because as soon as the perfect diaper was rigged, he no longer popped up looking horrified. He no longer was trying to clean himself, he is perfectly clean. Thanks to my frequently changing his diaper and giving him airings and light washings. He is smiling again and surveys everything around him like the lion he is.

The apples and cinnamon have been replaced with bowls of fresh ground coffee beans, more for the pleasure of their smell than the cover up of urine because that has thankfully left the building and is an issue no more. What remains is the occasional pooh that has slipped out but since he has his very own instantaneous hazmat cleanup crew that doesn’t seem to faze him or dent his pride. And for that I will be forever grateful!

Source: Molsie's Blog of Animal Assistance Products, creator of the Hip Hammock & Barrel Booster

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