The grass is green, the wildflowers are blooming, Cadbury mini-eggs are back on the shelves at HEB… spring has sprung for real in Texas, y’all.

And by spring I mean pre-summer.

I am not ready for this shit again yet. And apparently neither is Henry, because I went out to get him yesterday afternoon to ride and he was like “I cannot, I am dying of heat stroke” so instead of riding we body clipped. The front half of him had shed out pretty well, but from his saddle area back was still fuzzy. He grows an insanely thick and coarse coat, and since I only clipped him once last fall, there was just too much hair left. Combine that with the fact that he doesn’t handle heat and humidity well anyway, and yeah… it needed to come off.

Of course I wasn’t planning to clip at all, so he was dirty and I didn’t really have time to bathe him and let him dry, nor did I have my supplies prepared. I went digging around in my clipper bag and came up with three different semi-dull blades – a 10 and a T-84 for my Andis and the medium on my Listers. Oh well, it didn’t have to look perfect.

Between the three blades I managed to get the job done (with some artful blending required) and 45 minutes later he seemed much less miserable. Granted, now I was the miserable one, with sweat rolling down into my eyeballs and horse hair stuck all over me.

I hosed Henry (and myself) off, sprayed a little Unicorn Grooming Spray on his coat, turned him back out, and went to clean up my supplies.

At which point I found a new T-10 blade buried in the bottom of my clipper bag that I had totally forgotten about. Dammit. I struggled through 3 different dull blades for NO ACTUAL REASON.

Then I looked up and saw Presto standing at his gate, also looking hot. He’s been shedding, but not as fast as Henry.

You know where this is going.

I restrained myself from giving him a full clip, which I really wanted to do. His coat is longer but so much thinner and finer than Henry’s, so he’s really quick and easy and satisfying to clip. And although Henry is very well-behaved about clipping (as long as you don’t do his legs or ears) Presto is even better. Well ok he tries to eat the clippers when you do his head, but otherwise he just stands like a rock for all of it. Makes sense considering his first bodyclip was at 3 months of age (thanks rhodococcus meds).

I started with just the little strip on his chest/neck but then dear god his head looked even BIGGER, so I clipped the bottom half of his head too. The hair on his jaw was so long. Now he’s rocking what can only be described as a modified mullet… a little business in the front, but a whole lot of party in the back.

It’s still possible that I might cave at some point and clip the rest of him, since it sounds oh-so-satisfying, but for now at least he’s a little cooler. Which is good, because it’s supposed to be even hotter today. Stop it Texas.