Scissoring Ears to the Leather

I have posted before about scissoring long ears short, but that was because the ears were matted, and had to be taken shorter.

I am not sure about other groomers out there, but most of my customers want their dogs ears left long.

Especially Bichon owners.

I think it is funny that the show world grooms a Bichon Head large and full with little short ears that disappear into the head.

I have never had a Bichon owner ask me for the show head.

Thank God, because that is one head that I have always struggled with.

Of course it would help if I could get a really nice, full, un-matted head to work on.

Oh, and an owner that would let me do the 'real' Bichon head.

Most Bichon owners either want long ears with a full head, or long ears with a short, tight head.

A lot of Bichon owners don't want the ears trimmed at all, even when they are long and stringy looking.

I rarely ever get a Bichon owner ask me to take the ears short.

 Until Saturday.

My husband brought this little guy through the grooming room door, and the first thing he said was; "the owner said to take his ears short."

"Short? How short?" I asked looking over at the dog.

"She said to take them to the leather," he informed me.

"She said 'to the leather'?" I asked, skeptically.

"Yes, that's what she said, 'to the leather', he repeated.

"Bring him here," I told my husband before he could put the dog in a kennel.

I felt the dogs ears.

There were no mats.

I felt for the end of the ear leather.

Holding my fingers where the ear ended, I looked at my husband and asked; "does she realize that the end of the ear is all of the way up here?"

"She said she wanted them short," he told me again, starting to get a little exasperated with me.

"I am just making sure that she realizes how much hair I will be taking off the ear," I said a little defensively.

I knew you would, so I asked her a couple of times to make sure. Do you want me to call her and ask again?" he said, looking at me and silently thinking, 'you better not make me call her again.'

"She actually used the words 'to the leather'? I asked one last time.

"Yessss!" he answered while putting the dog in a kennel.

"Okay, okay," I mumbled.

You can see that the ears were very long. 

This owner was asking for a drastic change.

I am very gun shy of an owner that asks for something that will drastically change the dogs looks.

Especially when it is a dog that we groom often, and all of the sudden they change something up in the groom.

I have learned that doing exactly what the owner says is not always exactly what the owner wants. :/

I ended up scissoring the ears just below the leather instead of going all of the way up to the leather.

Then I made a mistake.

A rookie mistake.

The only excuse that I have, is that I was still worried about taking so much hair off of the ears, that I wasn't paying attention.

What was the mistake that I made?

You can kind of see the start of it in this picture.

I had run my fingers tightly down the ear to find the end of the ear leather, and hold the hair in place to be cut.

I made my cut from front to back, instead of back to front.

As soon as I let go of the ear, I saw my mistake.

The hair that I had pulled tightly to get a clean cut, bounced back up when I let it go.

The cut I wanted was the #2 line, an even cut across the bottom of the ear.

I did not want the hair in front of the ears cut.

If I had cut from back to front, it would have been less likely that I would have cut into the front of the ear. (line #1)

So how do I fix this mistake?

 Well, the owner said that she wanted the ears short, and when you cut fuzzy ears like this short, they tent to stick out on the sides, especially after a dog shakes it's head.

So I decided to blend and layer the ears just enough to fix the mistake.

How did I do this?

I'll show you with the other ear.

I found the end of the leather.

This time I did not hold the hair as tightly.

I also did not hold down the hair at the front of the ear.

I let it hang naturally.

I also did a few cuts, instead of one single cut across.

This way I could make sure I was not cutting more than I wanted to as I slowly worked my way across the bottom of the ear.

This is what I was aiming for on the other ear.

Now to match it up with the other ear.

 

First I clip out some of the hair in the front of the ear.

I also skim lightly down the side of the head, under the ear, only where the ear is going to lay and cover.

How much should you skim?

It will vary with each dog.

A little trick that I told my daughter to do when I was teaching her to groom was; just take a little at a time.

Let the ear hang normally, if it is still not laying close enough to the head, pick up the ear and skim a little more off till you get the look you want.

I always scissor on the conservative side.

I would rather not take enough off at first and have to go back and take off a little more.

You can always take more off..you can't put it back on.

Next, I comb out the ear and let the hair fall naturally.

I take my scissors and lightly scissor from the top of the head down the ear.

Again, the amount of the hair you scissor off will vary depending on the type of hair.

On this dog I only need to lightly scissor off the flyaway hair, lightly layering it.

As I get to the bottom of the ear, I scissor just enough to round off the hard edge at the bottom.

You can see by the small pieces of hair falling away from my scissor, that you don't need to take much hair off at all to get a soft, round edge.

The length of the ear is still the same, but now the hair will lay more softly and will not stick out when the dog shakes his head.

Personally, I like the short ears on this dog.

I think it makes him look like a puppy again.

They were getting too long and stringy.

Huuummmmm, I wonder if I put a large picture of this guy in the lobby, more of my Bichon owners might want shorter ears.

I doubt it,

They love those long ears.

Of course, I don't have much room to talk.

I love the long ears on my Poodle.  :-)

Happy Grooming, MFF