Gracie’s Life Experiment

Our little Mocha needs her hair cutting approx. once a month during Spring/Summer.  Thought as the baby is due next month that I’d better give her an extra good grooming now. As I seem to get a fair few hits from people also looking to “shear their dog” I thought I’d write about how I do it (I’m not a groomer or anything, but it seems to work). Bear in mind she’s a smallish Shih Tsu X Bichon Frise (Zuchon).

So here’s how I tend to do it. 
- Put dog’s leash on and put dog on picnic table, tying off the lead so she can’t jump off
- Get the electric clippers out (clean and oil if necessary). Pick height guide (today I used #2)
- While the dog is standing there put her under your arm (kind of like you’re going to pick her up under your arm but with her head backwards)
- Start shearing her back, starting from the rump. The instructions with the clippers said to go the other way (i.e. neck to tail but I find it doesn’t work as well). Move it slowly and it clips off more efficiently.
- You may find that if you haven’t groomed the dog you may get large matts. You’ll need to trim these off with scissors otherwise doggy doesn’t like it when the clippers get stuck.
- Usually I can use the clippers on her back, rump, sides of her thighs but she won’t let me near her face, legs or underside with them
- Then I do the rest by hand with the scissors. It works best to do as much clippering first as my dog always likes to play silly buggers and wriggles around at the beginning. By the time you get round to doing the fiddly bits you’ve won the battle of wills already and she can’t be bothered to wriggle as much.
- I start with around the eyes, cutting away all the tear duct crap first, then sculting around her muzzle. I like to leave the bit above the eyes a bit longer. Then I just work my way down her “cheeks” (do dog’s have cheeks?) and tidy up around her mouth. She gets staining from her food so I just trim it all away (you may need to move hair from inside her lips to cut it). Then I go for the top of the head down to the collar, I’ll pull up a tuft of hair with my hands (starting from the skin pulling gently until my fingers are about 1 inch from the skin then I cut at the tips of my fingers, thus ensuring I don’t cut through skin).
- With the ears you need to be especially careful to find the edge of the actual ear skin (as she has floppy ears and it often matts it can be quite tough). I tend to pinch gently with my fingernails to feel the textures. Then I leave a finger’s worth of gap and trim the hair away (for some reason her ear hair grows much faster than elsewhere). The underside of the ears is hard to do as she will shake her head when u tickle them. I find that I have to use a comb to straighten out the hair in her ears (and it’s very waxy) so that I can cut it.
- I then trim away under her chin down her chest. Her skin is much baggier/pink under her neck and stomach so be careful if you are using the “pulling the hair straight” before cutting it as there is more give. I find at this stage if you stand perpendicular to the dog’s skin then you can actually see through the hair and see where the skin’s edge is
- I use the scissors to trim off down each leg. The fur on her legs goes really curly when it’s wet and the skin is quite tight so I find that I can just turn the scissors at an angle and just trim away at it without getting any skin. You need to make the dog stay standing up. Mine doesn’t mind the front paws being done, but as soon as you start doing the rear legs she tries to sit down (I find it easiest to do with the dog under my arm (sort of around her stomach with her face pointing backwards)
- Then I tackle the tail and rear end. I hate this bit as she doesn’t like me pulling her tail and is v coy about me trimming away down there.
- I may then get the clippers out one more time and run it over her again just to get any stray bits off and to make sure that there’s no tufts
- Once I’m happy more or less with how she’s looking then I do the fiddly bit. She hates it, I hate it but we somehow manage to get it done. I’ll sit on the floor with my legs out straight, then put the dog on her back on my legs (using my legs like a cradle/vice). I start with her head nearest me first and clip each paw pad (watch out of the dew claw as doggies don’t like it if you try and cut it off!!). If you press your thumb against the upper two middle “toes pads” then the pads will spread and you can then use the scissors carefully to trim the hair out from between the pads (sometimes it’s very hard if she’s got mud caked in there). The skin between the two middle toepads comes up quite high so be careful between those two.
- Then I rotate the dog (still on her back) so that her head is pointing away from me. Do the same for the back paw pads. Then I trim any long wispy bits off her stomach working down towards her bits. She always tries to put her tail in the way, but I find you can tuck her tail under your leg. Then trim very carefully around the bits.

It takes a lot of patience on my part (yes, people who know me will laugh as I’m so NOT patient). It usually takes me about an hour to shear her, but the first 10 mins is always her monkeying about and trying to escape, and prob another 10 mins during that hour is me arguing with her!!! She does look every so cute when her hair is long (like a little teddy bear) but she just stinks in Summer.

Summary of the day: Sheared the dog, Went into work to input my marking, Went out for pub lunch with Matthew, Came home and had a nap, Felt ill