Kirby: To Trim or Not to Trim?

It's holiday time and most folks around here are talking about trimming their Christmas trees. In our home, the conversation has instead turned to trimming Kirby.

Since Kirby is of diverse breed lineage, the sky's the limit when it comes to options for proper hairstyle. To date, the extent of his trimming has been toenail clipping and cutting his eyebrows so he can see out from under them.

For me, it's been a matter of curiosity -- while his back and legs are wiry, his cheeks, neck and ears are covered with longer, softer hair. As a pup, he looked more wiry because his facial hair was shorter. But over the past year we've been watching this softer hair grow and grow and grow. Now he's looking a bit like a Yorkie mix.

There's a part of me that wants to just leave things as they are to see just how long the hair will grow. The extra hair on his ears makes them look a bit floppier and it fills out his face nicely. On the other hand, as my husband pointed out the other day, Kirby was pretty darned cute when his facial hair was a bit shorter.

So I'm putting it out there -- as we contemplate whether to trim up the little guy for the holidays, should we take a little off the ears, cheeks and neck or should we just let his long-haired genes express themselves unfettered?

Visual aids - of course, he'll never look like a puppy, but you get the idea:

Long/adult:

Medium/older puppy:

Short/puppy: