You would think that, on days when the high temperature is zero, dogs and cats would want to hang on to every last hair on their coat to keep themselves warm. But as those of you with house beasties know, that’s not what happens. On frigid days, Truffle and Telemann divest themselves of their coats with the speed and enthusiasm of bathers preparing to dive into the Mediterranean in July.
Telemann the cat sheds modest amounts of gray and white fur, plus the occasional wiry whisker. But Truffle the dog, despite being half the size of Telemann, outsheds him by a mile. Truffle is a “red merle”—a supposedly desirable coloration that earned him his role as puppy mill stud—and he sheds in three colors: white, black, and pale orange. On days like today, while the snow flies outside, multicolored drifts of fur waft about inside the house. The white hairs settle on dark surfaces, and the black ones on white. The orange hairs, for some reason, are not as noticeable.
I gave up on our humidifier after I was told that it could harbor deadly molds unless you use distilled water, and I wasn’t about to buy truckloads of plastic gallon containers of the stuff. As a result, the air in the house is dry and the flying fur sticks to everything—the bedsheets, the rugs, the food we eat. Above all, it sticks to me.
I wear a lot of black. It’s convenient, appropriate for all occasions, easy to dress up or down, and so on. The only drawback is that it becomes the ideal showcase for dog hair, and I seem to have an unfortunate preference for hairy dogs, such as German Shepherds, of which there have been four in my past. They all had woolly, light gray undercoats, and were dedicated, year-round shedders.
Pound per pound, though, Truffle’s output beats the Shepherds. Not only does he have a lot of hair, but some of it is spectacularly long. When I first met him, most of his coat had been chopped off to remove tangles. (I don’t suppose that puppy mill owners devote fifteen minutes every other day, like I do, to brush their Pomeranians’ coats.) But over the months Truffle’s hair grew until, on his hind quarters as well as his tail, some strands are now eight inches long. When he walks, his hind feet barely peep out from under that waving curtain of hair.
It is also exceedingly fine. Some strands are sort of crimped, while others are straight, but they all make a beeline for my black pants, black leggings, black tops, and black suede boots. The more I try to rub the hair off, the higher the static charge, which makes it stick all the more….
But enough of this. What am I doing, writing about dog hair when all I can think about are Alex Pretti and Renee Good? When I check the Times seven times a day, scanning the headlines for any glimmer of hope? Sometimes I get lucky, though. Here, in case you’ve missed it, is a recent glimmer , an especially significant one because it comes courtesy of a Republican-appointed federal judge who has had it with ICE.
In local news: this morning there was a flock of waxwings in the bushes in front of the house. And for a moment, as I kept the cat away from the window and watched them feed on “my” winterberries, I felt that I was doing something to ease the misery of the world.
P.S. And then I found this website: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/ where I made a donation to support the brave people of Minnesota.
