Our puppies were last shorn of excess hair in November. When I used to cut their hair myself, I would wait three weeks to a month and then set to with an assortment of scissors, time-consuming and tiring, snipping away hair first on one then the other. I'd been doing this for a quarter of a century, first with our other two little poodles, and now with these two.

With age, however, comes a gradual decline in the functionability of our senses. It's not just that we tend to have less energy to expend at any given tasks, but eyesight too has a tendency to degrade when we reach our senior-senior years. Patience too has a habit of trickling away, though I'd never found that to be much of a problem. Handling delicate jobs requiring both skill and patience become compromised and you fear a wrong move and injury resulting.

It took awhile, but we finally decided I'd put away those shears and we'd take Jackie and Jillie to a grooming salon, selecting one attached to the animal health clinic we'd been taking Button and Riley, J&J's predecessors to for health checks for many years. The staff at the 'spa' is young and cheerful, and their love of the dogs they handle to bathe, groom and care for is obvious.

And my relief at no longer having to groom our restless little fellows is enormous. At the same time the pleasure we take in seeing how beautiful they look immediately after their grooming session is equally enormous, their hair silky smooth and soft, their nails done, and all is well. This time of year meant we hesitated before taking them in, but they had become so wild and woolly, shaggy and unkempt in appearance, we felt we had little option.

In fact, we had waited a month longer than we would normally have them done. Our concerns are with the fact that shearing them would remove a protective layer of warmth against the prevailing cold conditions. On the other hand, with their hair an even and short cut, they don't pick up snow and ice as they're otherwise wont to do. It's just that they look so delicate and vulnerable, the bulky appearance gone, in favour of the grooming result showing just how small and dainty they are.

It was -8C and damp, with a cutting wind when we took them out for their afternoon hike through the forest trails in the ravine yesterday. They needed the full regalia, boots, sweater, jacket. Truth is, they gave no indication whatever of discomfort during our hike in the elements, behaving just as they normally do. We were acutely aware of the wind ripping through the protective layers of the garments we were wearing, however.