Mohawk and More

I've done an interesting variety haircuts over the last couple of days, from long to short and including a Mohawk, which I hardly ever get to do. 

I may as well go in order. My first dog of the day yesterday was a Miniature Poodle - half an hour late, but probably not her fault. Anyway, here she is before the bath.

Her owner told me that she can be snappy, and that she had been okay with her first groomer, but ever since that groomer left, she had been snappy and hated to be groomed, so she decided to try somebody else.

So I went really slowly with her, because I could see how scared she was, and I brushed her out as gently as I could. She was actually fine; she didn't give me a single problem.

Here she is all done - 2 1/2 hours later, putting me WAY behind.

(Side note - she came back today and said this haircut was still too long, so I took her a little shorter. I didn't have time to take a follow-up pic.)

This next dog is a Brussels Griffon, although they like his face and body short, so he almost looks like a Pug with a Mohawk.

Isn't he cute?

My last dog of the day yesterday was this Lhasa Apso. He looked okay when he came in - until I took his sweater off. Do you see how his body looks smoother than his legs? That's actually because the wool sweater had basically knitted his own hair into a sweater of its own - everything the sweater touched was one solid pelt, and the legs were actually in pretty good shape. 

Here is a close-up look at the matting on his body. See how you can't see his skin no matter how much we separate the hair?

When I was first learning how to groom, I was taught to NEVER wash a matted dog, because water makes mats worse. I also give this same advice to my clients. There IS one exception to the rule - IF you have a high velocity dryer, and you have the time to dry the dog ALL THE WAY straight through, this will loosen up the mats. 

Here he is after the bath and blow dry.

He even changed colors! He was a little dirty.

Here is another close-up of the mats, this time after the bath and blow dry. See how the "sweater" came apart into smaller mats that aren't right on top of the skin? 

(It's a good thing I proofread my posts first - I had completely forgotten to add this picture!)

Anyway, If I had shaved him before the bath, like I was originally taught, I would have had to shave him all the way down to the skin with my shortest blade. By loosening the mats up first, I wound up with this final result.

Still pretty short, but not down to the skin bald.

So that, with a couple of dogs I didn't get pictures of, was yesterday.

Today I got to start with this Cockapoo. His front legs were really choppy, but since that was the only place on him that looked like that, I suspect it is from him chewing on himself rather than his owners cutting him at home.

Here's a close-up of those funky legs.

Are you kidding me?! I just now realized that I apparently forgot to take after pictures. Sorry, folks. Anyway, he was a little bit matted, but I got him all brushed out and did a light trim on him.

Then there's this cute Brussels Griffon puppy. I think she's about 5 months old now. She is so wiggly that it is hard to do anything with her. Her owner brought treats today, which helped a little, but not quite enough. In the meantime I am glad she doesn't have much hair yet. I still wish I could trim under her eyes better, but I just couldn't hold her head still enough; there was too much risk of me injuring her.

My last dog of the day today was a Doodle, one of my requests. Here he is when he first came in.

He gets taken down with a short blade every time he comes in, so I find it faster to shave him quickly before the bath so that there is less hair to wash and dry. I forgot to take a picture after the shave and before the bath, but here he is directly after the bath and blow dry.

Notice how uneven he is? When I shave a dog before the bath (and I'm not then sending them home damp to dry curly), I'm going for speed over style. The groomer who taught me to do this once said, "Sometimes the dog looks like it has mange when I put it in the tub."

Here's the final result. As you can see, they do like him quite short.

He's such a good boy!

Anyway, I have another personal blog post in the wings, but I wanted to get out at least one dog post in between each personal post. I am The Writing GROOMER after all.