I’ve known people who swore that they’d die if they didn’t get something new done with their hair or clothes or makeup, but I’ve rarely taken them literally. With shelter dogs, it’s another matter; a good makeover can literally make the difference between life and death, as these videos from The Pet Collective show.
As we often reiterate on Dogster, it’s hard for a dog to get adopted into a forever home. Lots of dogs wind up living for years in a shelter, and too many just get euthanized.
The shelter shown in these two videos has a high kill rate, and it’s easy to see why the two dogs, Maggie and Charlie, wouldn’t have strong chances of going home with someone. Their hair is so dirty and matted that they look miserable, even sick, and it would be hard for anyone to look past that to see a potential addition to their family.
Enter The Pet Collective and Hollywood Grooming. The Pet Collective says it has five of these videos so far, all taken at the same shelter on the same day. They show each of the dogs going through a transformation at the hands of the groomers, going from sad, horrible messes to adorable young pups who are ready to go home with a family.
That’s not just hyperbole, either; according to producer Brittni Brown, all five dogs were adopted within a few days of the visit.
The transformation in the two available videos is quite remarkable; Maggie in particular looks like she’s in distress from the thickly matted hair smothering her body. By the end of her makeover, she looks happy and energetic. Some life even seems to come into her bad eye.
Did these makeovers save Maggie and Charlie’s lives? It’s hard to say; it’s possible that one or both of them, or any of the other three might have gotten adopted even without the grooming. But the one thing that’s obvious is that they’re both much happier, and it’s easier to imagine yourself taking one of them home.
Professional makeovers, whether for humans or dogs, are often dismissed as mere vanity or narcissism, but as Pet Collective videos show, they can be a very important part of caring for one’s physical or mental health. Our compliments to Pet Collective and Hollywood Grooming in making this effort.
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