Really hope this isn't my last post of the year

I recently read that one of the networks, probably ESPN, was going to air a documentary on the competitive world of dog grooming. Competitive dog grooming? Could there actually be such a thing?

So I asked my niece who happens to be a professional dog groomer. She confirmed that there are indeed grooming competitions. She's witnessed them at dog grooming conventions. Another thing I have trouble envisioning, but then again every profession holds conventions. Exterminators, people who make a living offing cockroaches, have conventions so why not dog groomers?

She sent me a few images of work groomers had done as part of these competitions: clipping a dog's coat and then applying color so the beast looked like a camel or a zebra or some other definitely not a dog creature. My immediate reaction was that some people should not be allowed to own dogs.

I can understand, more or less, the standard cuts that get used on dogs. Although, to be honest, how the conventional trim for poodles evolved to what it now is confounds me. I mean, what's the point of the giant fluffy ball of fur around the chest and the naked ass on the other end? But turning a dog into a fake camel? That has to cross some ethical line.

In any case, yesterday she followed up with a link to something even more bizarre. Glitter balls. You got it. Glitter. On the dog's scrotum. A few years ago I thought it was pretty damn weird that there are people who will pay to have fake testicles implanted when they have a male dog neutered. Why it would be important to any dog owner that his or her dog look like it still has functioning testicles once they've been removed is another mystery, one that kind of begs for some Freudian analysis. I mean, just how much of a dog owner's masculinity is wrapped up in whether his dog still looks like it has balls?

Glitter, though, is truly mind boggling. Just what is the point? I did a little Googling, and apparently this first started showing up about a year ago. The testicles are painted with a syrup and edible glitter gets dusted on. Not technically difficult, but definitely weird. The dog will lick it off, of course, making for some colorful poop, but supposedly it doesn't do any actual harm to the beast. What it does to other people's opinion of the owner is different matter.

Who first thought it up? Just how much alcohol had been consumed? And the poor dogs. . .  they already get to suffer the humiliation of being stuffed into strange sweaters and dresses (I see pictures of sad little drop kick dogs all the time being made to wear ruffled outfits that their demented owners believe are "cute") and now their balls are being bedazzled?

I really hope I'm inspired to do at least one more blog post in the next 48 hours. I'd hate to end the year with glitter balls.