My Berner now looks like a Swissy

I teased last week about posting photos of Loki since she was shaved. Well, I must be used to the way she looks now, because I couldn't produce photos that look all that shocking to me.

Here she is from a photo taken in January.


And here she is from a photo taken a week ago.


True, my Bernese Mountain Dog does now look like a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog to me, but she's still awfully adorable. And she's so much more expressive looking since she lost all those pounds of fur.

There seems to be a big disagreement in the Bernese Mountain Dog community about whether or not to shave a Berner, so we hesitated. I had an Australian Shepard that my mother had shaved every summer (Aussies are also a double-coated breed like a Berner), and she seemed to love it. Since Loki is so heat-sensitive, we decided it was worth a try.

Her groomer did a great job shaving her, being careful to leave enough fur coverage so that she won't get sunburned, and doing a good job feathering around her face and tail. I wish I had been there to see the actual shaving, as I hear there was an amazing pile of fur that came off of her.

Her fur is now velvety soft. We'll see if it helps her with the heat. I know that her fur coat is supposed to naturally trap cool air against her body, but I also know that if she's outdoors long enough, that cool air will eventually escape and she'll be stuck wearing a black fur coat. You wouldn't catch me in a black fur coat in the middle of a Chicago-area summer.