This summer has been hard for everybody. In fact the spring was pretty hard too. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic I discovered a guilty pleasure on YouTube that will calm me down in a few seconds and makes me feel better. This phenomenon doesn’t seem to make sense until I figured it out what’s going on the YouTube channel– Shu and Tree there is hardly any plot but let me just say that it will get to you too. A video of a toy poodle’s first grooming has already reached 14 million views.
The premise is simple a scruffy longer haired formally fluffy dog goes to the groomer. We get to see the before and we get to see an absolutely adorable after. There are very little words spoken most of them are in Korean with subtitles on the screen. Playing in the background is Calliope-like kid’s happy music. The channel is named after the owners’ two poodles Shu and Tree who often visit the dogs in the grooming shop. As of this writing they have over 300 million views on their channel since July 2018.
The dogs are usually what I would call the frou-frou kind. They have the kind of fur that fluffs up beautifully. There’s more to the story than just what they look like. The first thing is the dogs come to the groomer and they get to play they go outside and you see them running around happily without a care
Then they get put on the grooming table. Just for a brief quick nail clip and paw fur clean trim. They get put in a bath and you know dogs really don’t like baths that much and you can see them kind of like shaky shaky. As the shampoo is lathered the dogs get their first massages .
The next step is the one that gets all of us. The groomer has a special kind of dog Jacuzzi. While the dog are in this bubbling hot tub they get a puppy massage.
My favorite part of all these videos is first there’s a shaky scared dog or a puppy. Then during the puppy massage their face and demeanor changes they just go into dogilicious bliss.
There is a point on dogs heads for acupuncture in which they totally relax and they just are in doggy heaven. The groomer touches that happy point and from that point on the dogs do almost anything. We see them sit through hand scissoring blow-drying and a coiffure package that makes them look beyond adorable.
There is a style of dog grooming in Japan that looks like it’s very similar in Korea I call it the bubble head. It is usually on fluffy poodle-ly dogs whose head is rounded the ears are rounded in a totally teddy bear like fashion.
I’ve been thinking about why I am so hooked on Shu and Tree. Yes I love dogs and puppies and any puppy anywhere will draw my attention. I also love little frou-frou dogs and own one myself. My Yorkie poo however doesn’t have those beautiful rounded ears but I am rounding her face letting fringe grow on the lower side of her ears.
When we watch videos we experience the emotion of the story. Every time I watch a Shu and tree It’s like I’m going to the doggie spa. I’m getting the massage. I’m getting adored for being so cute.
Another amazing thing about Shu and Tree is how they get those dogs to sit still for so long. Most of us who have ever tried to take a photograph of a dog even if we have a treat on our head it’s darn near impossible.
But I think there is even an other point beyond that. When when we do human a makeover we can’t change our body fat. We can’t grow our hair all over our body to have us look like teddy bears. However dogs especially these poodle-types can be puffed and fluffed into a molded softness.
Let’s just dig further down into why I love Shu and Tree so much. Ihink that they have figured it out either in design or fluffiness is how to make these dogs look like puppies. Some of the most popular ones are of puppies. All animals and mammals have a softness about them as babies and puppies and dogs especially when they’re puppies have soft flush luscious fur. Puppies create dopamine, adrenaline and oxytocin in your brain.
Charlie Brown said “Happiness is a warm puppy.:
In these times of social upheaval fear doubt pandemic what we all need is a warm puppy. if we don’t have one Shu and Tree takes us to the puppy spa. Where we are able to be in a a world filled with cuddles, cuteness and adorable bliss.