About Me:

I am a professional Pet Groomer. I have been grooming for 28 years. This Blog is a kind of diary of my work. I wish I had started years ago, writing some of the experiences I have had while grooming. Most days are fun, some can be sad, some can be just down right crazy. If you are a pet owner and come across this blog, I hope it helps you understand how your pet is groomed. If you are a Pet Groomer, I hope you can relate to some of the stories. Maybe even learn a grooming tip or can leave a friendly grooming tip for me. There is always something to learn, no matter how long you have been grooming.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Scissoring a Shih-Tzu Head




This post is in answer to a comment that Jessica left me last week.

I have dug up a number of Shih-tzu's that I have groomed and photographed over the last 4 or 5 years.

Jessica's question was basically asking if I cut into the sides of a Shih-tzu's face, or leave the sides long to make a round face.

I hope that I understood the question right. :)




It's funny, I groom tons of Shih-tzu's, but I had to actually stop and think about this question a minute.

I even went back and looked at a lot of my pictures.

Grooming comes so second nature now, that when someone asks me how I do something, I have to stop and think about. :/

The answer is yes....I clip the sides of the faces on every Shih-tzu that I groom.

The only thing is, I don't clip it or scissor it the same way on every Shih-tzu.


I believe, in pet grooming, that there is no set way or length to scissor or clip every Shih-tzu's head, or any other breed for that matter.

The dogs that pet groomers see everyday are so different.

Even dogs that are the same breed, are different.

Head shapes are different.

Snout lengths are different.

Hair types are different.

Hair thickness is different.






I clip and skim out hair in front of the ear canal on every  dog that I groom.

How much hair that I take off the sides of the head, under the ears, all depends on the that particular dog and the thickness of the hair.





Some owners like Shih-tzu faces very short and tight.

I feel that the way you scissor the beard and mustache determine how round the face will look.






Some owners want a long, full bread that is a little harder to make look round.

On this dog I still skimmed down the sides of the head and blended into his beard.





Even though this Shih-tzu's owner wanted the whole face and head to be very short, he naturally has a round head.

Taking the mustache short and leaving the cheeks just slightly longer helped keep the round look.

Most Shih-tzu ears hide the sides of the the head and the cheeks.

On this little guy the owner likes the face on the fuller side, but not too long.

So I shape the mustache round, just taking off the sharp edges, without taking too much off of the mustache.




This little guy is the same dog in the photo above with the long ears.

Even though the ears have been clipped very short, the face still looks round.

The top of the head and sides were clipped with a #4F blade.

The muzzle was scissored round to match the sides of the face.


This little guys hair is much thicker than the Shih-tzu above.

A #4F blade was also used on the top of this dogs head and the side of his face, but with less pressure.

The muzzle was scissored a little fuller  than the Shih-tzu above to match the length the #4F blade left on this thick hair.

The ears help make the face look round also.


This guys Mom likes his face very full.

The top of the head was skimmed with a #3F blade, clipping in the direction of the hair growth, skimming off of the top of the ears.

Because this dogs hair is on the thinner side and very straight, I only lightly skim down the sides and then shape up with scissors.

It really would not matter how much I took off of the sides of this dogs head because the long ears would cover it.

You can very easily shave mats out of the sides of a Shih-tzu's face and still scissor the beard and mustache round, letting the ears cover the shaved area.







Since this Shih-tzu gets the hair pulled up on top of the head and the beard left long, I chose to keep the sides of the head long too.

If you were able to lift this dogs ear up, you would see that I did clip out and skim to blend the hair from right in front of the ears down into the neck.






This little guy was very matted.

Both sides of his head and cheeks had to be shaved short to get remove the mats.

His ears hide the shaved areas.

His muzzle was scissored short and round.








This ones hair is very thin on the top and sides of the head, and her mustache, but her beard is very thick.



 Most of the time I determine how I am going to scissor the head and face by the length that I do on the body.

As long as the owner does not ask for the face to be left long, I will scissor the head and face in proportion with the rest of the body.

I hate a big head left on a body that has been clipped short.

I always imagine the dog tipping over face first from all of the hair left on their head.


This is the only picture that I could find of a Shih-tzu were I had the ear pulled back to show what I did to the side of the face.

This guys head was very thick, and his Mom liked his beard left on the longer side.

So I would skim a #4F blade down the sides lightly, and then scissor to blend the sides into the beard.

A front view of this same dog is the 6th picture from the top.






This is another Shih-tzu that has very thin, straight hair.

Again I used a #4F blade to clip the top of the head and skim down the sides.










Then I round off the Beard, leaving the mustache long and straight.



This puppies hair is still growing out.

I have clipped the hair under the ears but left the sides on the shaggy side.

Mom is not quite ready for a full cut just yet.






This is the same, long legged, Shih-tzu 6 months later after Mom got tired of all of the hair.

Now the face has been scissored up short and round, but Mom still wants the top of the head pulled up.

Because this owner wants the mustache and beard on the shorter side, I did skim down the sides of the face after putting up the top of the head.





This cute guy has a very round head naturally.

I think that even if I shaved his entire head with a #10 blade it would still look round. :)






So, as I said at the start of this post, I don't think that there is any one way to scissor and clip a Shih-tzu's head and face.

It all depends on what the owner wants, the shape of the dogs head and face, and the type of coat that the dog has.

In the pet world pure breeds can come in all different shapes and sizes depending on the breeding.



That is one of the reasons that I love pet grooming so much.
There really are no rules.
At least not like in grooming competitions, where all of the lines and angles need to be the same.

As pet groomers we have to work with what is in front of us, no matter what type of hair the dogs have, or what type of body shape.
Our goal as pet groomers is to make the dogs feel good  and look cute for their owners.

Sometimes I think that some groomers stress too much on getting a breed to look like the breed books, or breeds that they have seen win grooming competitions.
The dogs in those pictures have great hair.
Those dogs are shown and competed with for their great body structure and great hair.

I once talked to Sally Liddick about competing at Hershey.
She basically told me straight out that if I wasn't competing with a show Poodle I would probably be wasting my money entering the competition.
I told her that she should set up a competition where groomers can groom rescue dogs so that you could really see how good a groomer is at grooming.
Give them a dog where they don't know what to expect and make it into a masterpiece.
 
I once worked with a groomer, for a very short time, that was a sought after Poodle groomer.
People came from all over and followed him all over to groom their Poodles.
He did do a great job on Poodles, but any other breed he touched looked like crap.
I think that the problem with him was that he was a snob about Poodles, and didn't care one whit about other breeds, especially muts.
Muts weren't worth his time.
In my eyes that made him a very sorry groomer.

Most pet breeds can't compare to the dogs being shown and competed with.
They are pets.
The funny thing is, every time I get a dog in with a coat and body structure you could compete with, the owner wants them shaved. :(
They are ones that I would love to scissor and scissor and scissor.

As far as I am concerned, as long as you are a gentle groomer who cleans the dog really good and clips and scissors the dog safely, you are a good groomer.
You cannot always get the face perfectly round.
Sometimes you have to accept close enough to round.

Pet grooming is stressful enough without groomers stressing over why the dog that they are grooming doesn't look just like that dog in the book...... or on the dog bone box.

I hope that this helped Jessica. :)
Tell me if I missed what you were asking.

 Oh, and don't look too closely at some of those faces.
I swear a couple of them looked crooked to me.
I wanted to pull out my scissors and fix a couple of them.

I know...I am a nut.

Happy Grooming, MFF




15 comments:

  1. Do you ever go in reverse on the top of the head to make that little "visor" ? That is how we were taught in school, but so many of my customers don't care for the little hair over the eyes.
    In other words, do you usually go with the hair growth?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Deb,
    The only time that I go against the grain on the top of the head is on Cockers and Schnauzers. The #7F against the grain leaves a really nice finish.
    All other dogs I go with the growth of the hair and scissor more if needed.
    In school I was taught to leave a visor over the eyes, but at this time I only have a couple of owners that like that look. Most of them want the hair short over the eyes so it doesn't grow out too fast. If they look like they have a visor, it is very short and just the way that that particular dogs hair falls.
    Lisa, MFF

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  3. Hello! all your haircuts on these dogs look so nice. I got trained at petco over the summer and although I love grooming dogs and love making them cute Im very limited. The groomer who Ive been working with isnt very good at all. I know it my coworkers know it and alot of the customers know it. She says shes been doing it for a while too. Anyways I want to be good. And one of my coworkers think my haircuts are much better then the other groomers already. I try alot of things without knowing what will happen because I just dont want to ask my mentor groomer because I dont like how her cuts turn out. I have all the clipper combs and have no idea how to use them because she doesnt use them. But I like leaving dogs fluffy and long! And some of the owners want me to too, but I dont because I dont know how and I dont want to mess it up. Alot of your shitzu muzzles look really round and I really like it, and the sides of the faces are so even. I try to do round but my "mentor" always just cuts along the jaw line and thats it. So my found faces look ok but eh, im just expierimenting. Any tips on how I can learn? P.S. I did my first lion cut on a chow today with no help but pictures from the internet and the owner loved how i did it. She said she liked it much better than last time, and guess who did it last time(ill give you a hint, it wasnt me and there are only 2 groomers including me in my salon).

    sincerely,
    desperate for cuteness

    ReplyDelete
  4. You did understand every word ;) thank you soooo much this is just perfect!!!! Ohh and thanks for taking of your time :) yes i tgink i stress a lot i want to do the best i can and that my clients like it and come back i feel a little maybe less because i havent gone to a grooming school and i want to demostrate people that i can do a good work that you can put side by side of a groomer that did go to school :/ i dont know if this makes any sense! :/ by the way i love your dog foots :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Desperate,
    You are on the right track by trying to learn more on your own. When I was in grooming school I bought every book I could get my hands on about dogs and grooming. Believe me there wasn't a lot out there then, but that didn't stop me from trying to learn everything that I could.
    If you can afford it, I would check out the Jody Murphy grooming DVD's. Maybe you could buy one a month or check out e-bay. Here is a link to her website:

    http://www.jodimurphy.net/products_instructionalseries.htm

    I don't no Jody, but I really like what I see in her DVD's. I like her calm, straight forward teaching. I think that these DVD's will really help you to learn a lot more about grooming.
    Thanks for reading my blog. I'll try to help you learn too.
    Lisa, MFF

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Jessica,
    I am glad I could help. Don't worry about not going to grooming school. I went to grooming school but found out, after I graduated, that they were way behind the times, and I still had A LOT to learn.
    Good grooming comes from the heart. If you really love what you are doing it will show in your grooming. If you always stay open to learning, your grooming will get better and better. :)
    Lisa, MFF

    ReplyDelete
  7. I took my toy poodle and a shih-Tzu to a groomer I had never used before. The poodle ended up with a razor scrape on her cheek about an inch long and 1/4 inch wide. She also had a razor cut on the base of her vulva. The shih-Tzu's face hair was cut really jagged on each side (to me it looked like a haircut a 5 yr old would do). He had a lot of tear stains around his eyes and they were as bad when I picked him up from the groomer as they did when I took him. He belongs to my brother-in-law and I've no experience with shih-tzus, but it just didn't seem right to me. This was my brother-in-law's groomer and we were visiting him from out of town. Other than the razor burns on the poodle which caused big scabs, she did a good job on the poodle but I will never take Lollipop back to her. She did a good job cleaning Lollipop's feet, but Harley's (shih-Tzu) feet were not cleaned on the bottom like Lollipop's were, there was a lot of hair sticking out between the pads and the top of the foot had ragged hair over the toenails. Is this a common way for shih-tzu grooming
    or does it sound like a bad job?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,
      Love the name 'Lollipop'! :)

      It sounds like two different groomers may have groomed the dogs. As for the razor irritation on your Poodles face, it is very hard to say how that happened. It could have been a careless groomer that was not careful while shaving the face, but it could have also been something as simple as your dog rubbing its face along a towel after the bath. My own Poodle has done this. I have also found that as my Poodle gets older, (she is white) her skin gets much more sensitive to the shaving. I can shave her face 5 times with no problems and then the sixth time she gets irritation, or scratches a sore on her face.

      As for the Shih-tzu, The eyes should have been cleaned well. If the dog would not let them clean the eyes, they should have told you at pick up. It is hard to keep the eyes clean, and they may always look wet on a Shih-Tzu that has excessively runny eyes, but the groomer should have at least scissored them up. As for the feet, the pads should have been clipped out nice and clean, something like your poodles pads. The top and sides of the feet should be scissored up nice and neat and round to match the body cut.
      Lisa, MFF

      Delete
  8. Please recommend a Shih Tzu groomer in the Naperville, Illinois area. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,
      I wish that I could recommend someone to you. I am in Maryland and do not know any groomers in Illinois. You could try talking to a Shih-tzu breeder in your area and see if they have a groomer that they could recommend.
      Lisa, MFF

      Delete
  9. Is this still active? If so I went to a great dog grooming academy in Illinois to learn to groom dogs and I also have a Shih Tzu. I just wanted to say the information you give out here is great and am happy you are here to help people. You are doing a service to people, and I thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  10. hopeless and harriedAugust 15, 2014 at 10:30 AM

    Hi,

    I am a self-taught groomer who has/is being trained by another self-taught groomer. Although she is very good, I am finding that I am struggling with the dogs I am grooming. I especially have trouble with the heads and she can be somewhat vague in her instruction and what is worse, every single dog has a different set of instructions. I study books, watch videos, and now am grooming dogs for free, just to get the practice in that I need. I am under so much stress that I can hardly bear to go into the shop. I just don't know what else I can do to improve. The times that I do feel as if I am making progress, she bashed my confidence so hard I am afraid to pick up a pair of scissors, much less a clipper. I am desperate! Please, please help me find some sense of direction

    ReplyDelete
  11. I really enjoyed reading all of your advice! You inspire me and others to be the best groomers we can be while having loving hearts and open minds! I am finishing up my grooming training and I have already started building new clients! :) I love your take on grooming and I completely agree with you! Can't wait to further myself in this expressive and exciting career!

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  12. This was a great read...I'm a new groomer (2 yrs) and Shih Tzu's are the the most popular breed on my table...and I agree every one is different. Grooming the face and ears are my biggest challenge...how short do you cut the ears, should you shave them, and the chin lol... I never know whether to trim it straight and blunt, or round it, and so on...I just go for it using my own judgement of course and what I think will look good...I always get rave reviews, but looking back, some of them look like hack jobs to me. Lol...I can see the improvement! Thank goodness for the internet...I have learned many valuable grooming tips! Thanks for sharing your stuff :)

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  13. Great info. I dabble with scissors ty

    ReplyDelete