Uncle Buck calls it quits
I have been grooming and pampering Uncle Buck all summer long with the hopes that he would be able to compete one more time at the Spencerville show before I would take off his glorious show coat. This boy has been such a joy to maintain. He has one of the easiest coats I have ever taken care, it's just magical. He barely ever gets any tangles and when he does they are very easy to blow open with just the blower. A quick blow out about once a week is all he needs to remain in good condition despite of having such a wonderfully dense coat.
Well as luck would have it, despite the efforts, as soon as the weather started to cool, Uncle buck started to blow his coat. It started with a trickle of wool coming off still giving me hope that with very delicate grooming there would be something left to show. But less than 2wks before the show it became clear that he has lost too much, probably a 3rd of his coat was already gone. It would have been pointless to enter him, and the heavily moulting coat if left on him would pose a wool block risk. So it sadly had to come off.
Even while missing so much, he still managed to look glorious for pictures with his coat all fluffed up.
His entire shoulders were almost bare. All that was left was the sparse new coat that was starting to come in. All things considering I am still happy with the fact that he held on to his coat as long as he did. He was over 9mo old at this point! His coat also still felt amazing in it's texture. Old coats can feel dead and lifeless, his did not. I am keeping fingers crossed he can pass these wonderful qualities on to the next generation.