Scissoring Heads

 A few weeks ago I was asked to show how I groomed the head on the rescue dog that I competed with in Hershey.

I have been waiting for a dog to come in the shop that looked something like this dog.

We have quite a few that have the same type of head as this guy, but not one of them have been in in the last few weeks.

They will all come in next week just because I decided to use a different type of head for this post.

When I thought about  writing this post, I realized that I basically scissor most of my heads the same way.

It is the amount that I take off, and/or the type of hair that changes up the look for each dog.

So, below I will be showing a step-by-step of how I scissor this dogs head, and most of the other heads on dogs like this, and dogs with straighter hair.

There are a lot of pictures with this post.

I was trying to take pictures of everything that I do.

Every groomer has a different style, and way of grooming.

This is my style and way of grooming the head on dogs with straight, and semi straight hair.

Some heads I only hand scissor.

It all depends on the look that I am trying to achieve. 

I tend to save my heads for last.

I like to clip or scissor them in portion with the body cut.

I can't stand to see a dog that has a short body clip and a big, puffy head that makes the dog look like it is going to topple over.

I start with blending the back of the head to the body.

This dogs hair cut is a Lamb #5F.

Because this dog has semi curly hair on the top of the head, I start with a clip comb attachment, with a light pressure.

 I start at the top, back of the head and clip down into the neck.

 The pressure that I use depends on how much hair I want to take off. 

I always start with a light touch and increase my pressure accordingly.

I used a clip comb for this dog, but on a dog with very straight hair, like a Shih-Tzu, I might use a #4F, or a #3F, because the hair tends to slide through those blades depending on the thickness of the hair.

My rule of thumb is; the thicker the hair, the longer the blade, or clip comb I use on the head.

For dog with curly, poofy type hair, I either hand scissor everything, or skim with a clip comb like I am doing on this dog.

On dogs with hair like this one, do not use the blade/clip comb on the very top of the head.

 With just about every dog with straight hair on the top of their heads, I use a #3F, or #4F blade.

I clip the top, back 3/4 of the head.

I leave the bangs to hand scissor.

Once again, the amount of pressure that I use depends the amount of hair that I want to take off.

Tip: clip only with the hair growth, and slowly, so that you don't get a choppy cut.

After I have blended the back of the neck, I skim off the top of the ears to blend the head into the ears.

Again, be careful with your pressure.

Then I flip the ear out of the way and skim down the side of the cheek.

If you didn't do this when clipping the body, pick up the ear and clean up under the ear and around the neck with the body blade that you used on the dog.

This helps to clean up the line under the ears so that you can scissor the beard.

At this time I also clip out an upside down U on the neck behind the beard.

 I do this so that the cut of the beard looks cleaner next to the neck.

I hope that made sense.

Now I start to scissor everything.

I finish blending the back of the head and neck.

Then I scissor the length that I want off of the beard.

I like to curve the beard from the ear to the nose.

This owner likes the beard on the longer side, so I only cut the ends of the beard and mustache.

If I wanted a short, round beard and mustache like the dog that I posted the other day, I would still take the length of the beard and mustache off first, then I would scissor into the mustache to shorten it and round it off.

Next, I comb up the side of the head...

....and scissor to blend the cheeks into the beard.

Then I scissor up around the eyes...

....and blend into the sides of the face.

 I scissor over the eyes and shape up the top of the head.

Looks okay over the eyes, right?

Till I put him in the kennel , then there will suddenly be hair hanging in his eyes.

Right?

Come on...I know that that has happened to you too.

Tip: Even after you think that you have scissored up those eyes really good, drop the dogs head so that he/she is looking down at the floor.

Now scissor around the eyes again.

This isn't a fool proof trick, because I swear that there is a little hair gremlin out there that pulls hair out of place after you finish a dog and put them away in the kennel.

Not before you put them away.

No!

After the dog is back in the kennel, and you walk by and look at the dog, so that you have to take the dog all of the way back out, onto your table to fix it.

Hold the dogs face back up and finish shaping the top of the head.

Here is a view from the back.

The last thing that I do is lift the head to make sure that there are no long hairs that I have missed on the beard, close to the neck.

This is another area that that gremlin likes to pull out stray hairs.

So, the last thing that I do is comb the mustache and beard one more time and hold the head up from back at the cheeks.

Then I bend down to see under that chin and scissor up any uneven hair.

I am sorry to say that there is a most always some uneven hairs under the darn chin for me to trim. :/

I know that some groomers do not agree with using blades on a dogs head.

I had one groomer get very upset at me when she heard me say that I sometimes use a #4F blade on the top of a head.

She felt that head should only be scissored.

That's okay, that was her opinion.

I personally don't see anything wrong with using a blade to shape the head, if the end result is going to be as nice as a fully scissored head.

Using a blade to shape the head can be  helpful and faster for a groomer that struggles with scissoring.

Skimming with a blade over the head can help start to shape the head so that there is not much scissoring left to do.

In my opinion, you should always follow up with the scissors to clean everything up.

 I hope that this post has helped someone.

I hope that this is what you were looking for Mayw16. :)

I love this dog.

He is one of my favorites, and he was such a good boy for the pictures.

Getting the pictures made me take twice as long to do his face.

Did I say that I love this dog?

Happy Grooming, MFF