"You Have Totally Lost It!"

That is what my daughter told me yesterday when she found me scissoring on little stuffed dogs.

Yes, you read that right....little stuffed dogs.

Little stuffed dogs that I bought to scissor.

Why!!!!!

Let me explain my madness.

I have always thought about buying one of the model dogs that they have for grooming and cutting it different lengths so that my customers, who need to actually see a length to visualize how long or short their dogs fur will be, would be able to see and touch something.

When I first started grooming, one of the places that I groomed at had a board with strips of fake fur, cut to different lengths, so that the customers could pick out a length that they would like left on their dog.

It may sound a little tacky, but it did work pretty good.

Especially for those customers that can't tell you exactly how long or short they want their dog.

I thought of scissoring a model dog down to a #7F on the body, a #5F on one leg, a 4F on another leg, about a 5/8 length on the third leg, and the last last leg long and full.

Well, I never got around to doing that, and apparently they no longer sell the model dogs.

Plus, they were pretty darn expensive.

So, I saw these little guys a Toy R Us this past weekend.

I liked that they had long fake fur that could be scissored.

So, I had an idea.

A crazy one, but I wanted to try it out.

So I bought five of these little stuffed dogs.

I started combing all of them (but one) out.

I used one of my small cat combs.

I had to be really gentle so as not to pull too much hair out.

I think they combed out pretty well.

Then I started to scissor with some cheap dollar store scissors.

They were brand new so they were nice and sharp.

Funny how I caught myself trying to hold these cheap household scissors the same way I hold my grooming scissors.

It was very awkward.

I had to hold them the way you would normally cut with household scissors.

This is a picture of the stuffed dog half scissored.

This is after I finished cutting the first stuffed dog.

I scissored it to resemble a long puppy cut.

This is to show customers a hand scissor cut.

 I am keeping one of the stuffed dogs un-groomed so that a customer can actually see the difference.

The next dog is scissored to about a #4F or 3/4 length.

I would use this dog to show a short but not shaved length.

I can pick up the hair on the stuffed dog to give the owner an idea of the length that will  be left on their dog.

 They can also see what half off would look like.

Then we have the smoothy.

The customer can see what the ears look like cut off.

They can see what the face looks like if it was cut very short and tight.

They can feel the legs to see how short a #7F, or #5F would be.

Of course, I would have to explain that their dogs legs would look a lot skinnier.

The owner can feel this leg and feel how close the hair will be cut to the skin.

This leg was scissored as close as I could get it and the clothe netting that the fake fur is weaved into is showing a little, so that I can show and tell the owner that the skin may show if their dog is clipped with a #7F blade.

At least this would give an owner some idea of how short and how different their dog would look with a smoothy clip.

This one is a little harder to see in the picture, but it is a lamb cut.

The customer will be able to see that the body is shorter than the legs.

So, there is my gang.

I still have to decide how I am going to display them.

Of course these guys are not self explanatory.

I will only use them as a visual aid.

I will still have to explain different things, like coat types and how their dog will actually look with a certain blade length, to the customer.

Between these guys and pictures, I would think that I should be able to get a very good idea about what a customer really wants....even the hard to understand customers.

So.....am I crazy?!

Maybe just a little bit. :)

Happy Grooming, MFF