Naked Mole Rat

Once, a very long time ago, I read a book entitled Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems.  It is a children's book centered on conformity, or rather non-conformity (my preference!), where one of the naked mole rats, Wilburs, bucks the status quo and begins wearing clothes unlike his bare skinned peers.  After reading the book, not only did I admire the overall theme, but the idea of an animal, so comically and aptly named naked mole rat just stuck with me, and I frequently use this strange animal to describe a vast variety of things.

Case in point, when we arrived back home to Dallas, and that excruciating 100 degree heat engulfed our goldendoodle on our very first walk, I immediately asked Jeff to shave the Milt down.  Jeff asked how short, and I adamantly replied, "As short as possible."  Upon conclusion of the sheering, the first words that popped into my head were naked mole rat.

Super short

To me, naked mole rat is synonymous with ugly.  When your close friends, who also just so happen to have doodles, ask you if you meant to cut him like that, you know it is bad.  This picture was actually taken after a week of growth, so you can really only imagine how bad the initial cut was.  It honestly hurt my eyes to look at my boy because he just looked so sickly, like he was in pain, with patches of pink translucent skin popping through his pale coat.

As for Milt, I really do think that he is much happier and cooler with his brand new haircut.  There is a certain pep in his step and skip in his jump that was not normally present on our marches through the heat, but then again, Milt can't really look too closely at himself in a mirror!  It did, however, buoy my spirits a bit when I took him for a walk at a local lake and three different people approached me with questions about what type of dog, scattered with compliments, and requests to pet him.  Maybe I just don't get beauty...

Regardless, Milton's our goldendoodle whether he looks like a goldendoodle or not, and we still love him despite that uncharacteristic lack of curls!

Follow Milton on Instagram at Milton_the_goldendoodle.