Molting

The trees may shed their leaves in the fall, but in the spring, it is my turn to shed my hair. As a pug, I, Poppy, spend a great deal of energy growing hair and then losing it. I am very good at this. In fact, you might say it is a forte of mine. Like any one who has a great skill, I practice year round, however, when the sun begins to come back, and Mommy and Daddy come home to feed me before it is dark, and the grass at Grandma and Grandpa's starts to green (I am a great fan of grass, but that is a subject for another post), I elevate my shedding to a work of art. Most of the time my hair simply accumulates on the carpet, or in the corners of the room, or sticks to the clothes of my human companions. In spring, my hair comes off in great clumps, which, if I were a middle-aged man, would be worrisome and cause me to think about buying a sports car. I am not, however, a middle-aged man. Instead, the hair flies from my body when I shake. It accumulates on my beds, it sticks to the hands of whomever is rubbing my ears or my tummy. I leave a trail of pug hair as I walk through the kitchen. Try as they might, the cleaners cannot get my hair off of the back seat of my mommy's car. I have even been known to shed on myself -- the fawn hair of my body being a marked contrast to the black of my face.

Like every great craftsperson (or dog), I make what I do look effortless. I fain the appearance of nonchalance as I create volumes of half-inch-long adhesive stickers. You might say I do it unconsciously.