Havanese

I've been really busy with work and exercise for the last couple of weeks and excelling in brain farts, so it's been quite some time since my last blog post.

I was looking through all of my photos, searching for inspiration for a blog post, when I noticed that I had quite a few pictures of Havanese, which are becoming a popular breed, at least around here, but still aren't quite as popular as their cousins, Shih Tzus and Lhasa Apsos.

At my very first grooming job, we only had a couple of Havanese that came in. It was enough to know what they looked like and how to groom them, but not very many at all.

At my next job, we still only had a few Havanese that came in, and most of those customers asked if we had ever groomed Havanese before.

Now, I seem to be working at the Havanese mecca. I groom far more Havanese than Shih Tzus these days, and that sort of boggles my mind since I used to average AT LEAST 5 Shih Tzus a week. Now I'm lucky to do that many in a month.

So for those of you who may not be very familiar with the breed, here are pictures of 7 different Havanese with different haircuts and coat types.

This first one is a new client I did recently. She came in with the blue tail, I didn't do that. The owner didn't want much of a trim on the body, she mostly just wanted her to have a light trim and long "wispy" bangs. I had never done wispy bangs before, so that was an interesting puzzle to attempt, but the owner was thrilled with the result and booked another appointment.

These next two dogs are my regulars and come in on a regular basis, every 6 weeks, I think. This first one is the curliest Hav I've ever seen. The first time I groomed her, I apparently left her topknot too long and the owner said that after she grew out for a couple of weeks, "She looked like Diana Ross," so now I take her topknot a length shorter than her wavy-coated sister.

Neither dog particularly wanted to look at the camera. What you can't tell from the pictures is that the dark dog is SO much more outgoing than her sister. The light dog is very shy and timid. They are both very good to groom, though, and I enjoy doing them very much. Anyway, as you can see, they get a pretty short cut; I leave about 1/4".

This next dog is another of my regulars. I think he's about 8 months old now. He's very good for as young as he is. It sounds like the owner wants to grow him into a full coat, at least until Spring when she may or may not decide to take him shorter. He's never matted, so that probably won't be a problem.

The next two dogs are also my requests, both from the same family. This first one was born without eyes, so the owners like her to have a really long visor to cover the areas where her eyes should be. She's a little lazy but very good otherwise. I leave about an inch all over on her body.

This dog as a collapsing trachea, so I need to keep the grooming loop behind one of his legs and not just around his neck. He can be a little wild, but he's pretty good. I leave about half an inch on him.

Finally, I have my full-coat request. She has a LOT of hair, and it's like mine - it likes to stick to itself even when she isn't matted. Even with minimal trimming, she takes me a solid 2 hours to groom from start to finish. This is the best picture I could get of her somewhat looking at the camera. You can't really tell from this angle, but under all that hair, she's quite hefty. Still, she's basically a really good dog, just a little lazy from the extra weight she's carrying.

As you can see, Havanese come in all different colors and coat types. They can have straight, wavy, or curly hair, and they can get any length of haircut.

So there you have it, a primer to Havanese. I hope you enjoyed this breed-specific blog post; I'll try to do more as my picture collection expands.