Furmania
I am a lover of many types of stress relieving activities. I carry at least three fidgets in my backpack at school all day, I have a yoga mat awaiting me in my living room for tough days, I run and spill my feeling to my friends on a daily basis, and of course I have the meditation app Calm downloaded on my phone. With all these offerings to relieve my daily anxieties, I try not to turn to any sort of video content. I worry that over time, the videos will override any other beneficial thing I can do for my body.
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But there is one YouTube channel that I can’t help but pull up every so often: Girl With The Dogs. This content creator provides dog grooming services to those in need through the support she receives online. She used to be a professional groomer, but believes in giving back to the community, and now only accepts charitable donations to other causes as payment if customers have the funds. Otherwise, her services are free.
I love this channel, partly because of the values of the creator, but mainly because of how satisfying the videos are. I love seeing matted huskies come in, get cleaned, and come out with a stylish, sleek, and smooth new coat. My favorite part of this whole process is the blow drying. It’s remarkable how much hair can come out of some of the dogs, and in the end it doesn’t even look like there’s a difference, except for the small dog sized mound of fur on the ground, of course.
This is the one type of video content I allow myself to watch while I relax, because it doesn’t feel mindless. In fact, it inspired me (and my mom) to attempt such a thing with our own dog. We have two, one who goes to the groomer on a regular basis because he’s well behaved and really needs someone to cut his curly poodle fur, and the other who is mean and would bite someones finger off if they tried to groom him. Anyone except us that is. So my mom and I have undergone an attempt to wash and dry him ourselves. We toil away at the side of the bathtub, scrubbing and rinsing, over and over. Then, the most fun part, the blow drying. He feels so nice and soft after, and meanwhile I get to see all the mats get blown out of him. It’s great. So I highly recommend this method to anyone looking to destress and help a dog out.
