Do you remember Play-doh? And the sets you could get to make more mess with your Play-doh? How about The Mop Top Barber Shop? Until last weekend, I hadn’t thought of this toy since I was a kid. Last Sunday was Canine Manicure Day at our house. This is generally quite a production involving, among other things, splitting the dogs up so one is watching from the hallway while the other dog is screaming blue murder in the kitchen. Kidding. But I do split them up, otherwise the free dog will take advantage (via unrestricted poking, barking and sniffing) of the dog who can’t go anywhere because I’m either sitting on him (Seth) or at the very least have a firm grip on one of his paws (Rory). So there I am grinding down Rory’s nails with the Dremel. After what seems like forever – it has been two weeks since I last performed this “weekly” ritual – I think we’re done. Rory gets up and walks around as if he’s testing things, making sure I haven’t inadvertently sliced off a toe or something. What I notice is that once he’s standing up, his nails don’t look nearly as short as they did when he was lying down. Also at this point, I have finished my daily espresso-based drink but haven’t had breakfast, so my caffeine-addled brain immediately comes up with two (quite irrational) explanations for this amazing nail phenomenon. First: Rory has retractable nails and pulls them in when faced with the grinder so that I’ll be finished sooner. Alternatively: when I’m holding (squeezing?) Rory’s paw maybe it’s the same sort of mechanism where you crank the Play-Doh and it comes up through the holes in the plastic guy’s head. Only these are chunks of keratin, not modeling compound. In any event, much to Seth’s delight (because it meant it wasn’t his turn yet), Rory underwent round two. By the time I got to Seth, I had had enough and just trimmed the tips of his nails. Lucky boy. Till next week.

And for those who need a demo of the whole mop top thing (just so you understand the analogy to never-ending dog nails….) check out YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiIDrCvv0AQ

I have to say it’s just as fun to watch the ‘hair’ grow on video as it was to crank the handle and do it for real. In fact, watching it is better, because then you don’t have to clean crusty Play-doh out of the follicles in little plastic heads.