Grooming Dangerous Dogs

I thought about blogging yesterday, but that is about all the energy I had left last night. :/

I didn't think that I had anymore elderly dogs on until tomorrow.

I was wrong.

Boy, was I wrong.

My very first dog of the day yesterday.

Another new customer.

Another 17 year old dog.

This one was severely senile.

The first words out of the owners mouth, as she struggled to bring him in, was; "I think he has become senile."

That went without saying.

The dog was walking into my lobby walls.

Oh, and add deaf and blind to his medical issues.

I couldn't believe my luck.

Two days in a row of really old dogs.

I think we are going to have to start asking customers how old their dogs are, when they call for an appointment, so we can book the day for the extra time it takes to groom the elderly ones.

I really don't mind grooming elderly dogs, but one a day is enough for me.

It is enough just worrying about one elderly dog a day, and praying that it will get through the groom easily.

This dog was down right dangerous to groom.

It did not help to find out that the dog had been being groomed by a Mobile groomer, and that the owner would hold the dog down while the groomer clipped it.

Hold the dog down!? 

I will admit that if I was grooming alone, I most likely would have turned the dog away.

I will also admit that I would rather have groomed a biting dog.

Elderly, senile dogs are just too unpredictable.

This old guy was non-stop motion.

I mean, he did not stop moving for a second.

I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack from shear exhaustion.

 He had too much hair to hand dry, so I took the chance with the HV.

Even thou he was deaf, I packed his ears with cotton and used the Happy Hoodie, praying that he would not reject the dryer.

I watched very closely, looking for any signs that he might be stressed.

Thankfully he did not reject the dryer, and I had him completely dry in around 10 minutes.

The short video clip below shows how jumpy he was on the table.

He danced like that the entire time he was being bathed, dried, and clipped.

Oh, and he absolutely refused to let you hold his face to scissor his head.

I had to hold onto the hair on the side of his cheeks, and scissor the opposite side of his head while his head bobbed up and down, back and forth.

I finished him.

It wasn't the greatest groom, but I am sure he felt better.

I will say that I have to get myself into a certain state of mind before I start grooming them.

I have to get into a relaxed state.

I try to transfer that relaxed state to the dog by keeping my touch very soft and gentle.

Even when I have to move the dog or push him back into place on the table, I try to do it gently and calmly.

You would probably laugh at me if you were in my head.

If I feel myself starting to get agitated, (the agitation is from fear of the dog possibly hurting itself) I will start talking to myself.

What do I say to myself?

'Calm down, he's old."

'You're doing fine, relax.'

'You're half way done, hang in there.'

'You know you can do this, you're almost done.'

'Why do I do this to myself.'  :/

I know it's crazy, but it gets me through some of the most difficult grooms.

I remember when I first started grooming, and I was grooming by myself in the back of a pet shop, there were times that some grooms brought me to tears.

I would feel so over whelmed.

What got me through?

I would give myself a lecture.

I would tell myself; 'calm down, you know what you are doing, you groom dogs everyday and get through it, just relax and take your time.'

I have to say, that talking to myself helped get me through some tough grooms.

I don't have to do that much anymore, but it still helps me when a groom is pushing me to my limits.

I was mentally exhausted when I was finished grooming that elderly Bichon.

I find that if I know ahead of time that the dog I will be grooming may be difficult, and I can give myself a pep talk before I start, and get in that calm place, that 9 times out of 10 the groom goes smoothly.

Do you think that that was my only elderly dog yesterday?

Nope!

This little 16 year old was my second groom of the day.

I have groomed her about half a dozen times.

She is a little scary to groom only because she is prone to seizures, but she is great to groom, and she only takes me an hour or so to groom her and get her back home.

It has been a weird week so far.

After finishing the elderly dogs, my husband came in the grooming room to tell me that the owner of this dog wanted to talk to me because I did not get the groom right the last time.

Before I went up to the owner, I looked at the file.

I had only groomed the dog one time, last October.

The owner had just rescued the dog.

I had given the dog a Puppy Cut (1/2 off all over)

I had a note that I had only neatened the head and face because someone had already clipped it short, and the new owner wanted it to grow out.

The owner said that she had been staying at her house 'down the shore', and that was why she had not been back to me.

She said that nobody could get the head right.

I reminded her that I had not groomed the head when I groomed her dog because it was growing out from being clipped off.

She was a nice lady, she just had a really hard time trying to describe how she wanted the head to look.

She could see it in her head, but did not know how to tell me.

I told her that I would do my best to groom the dog the way I thought she wanted it.

I told her that I would try to get it right.  :)

 When she came to pick up the dog, I let my husband take the dog up to her.

I told him not to be upset if she told him that I didn't get the groom right.

She wanted the body short, about 1/2 an inch left. 

She wanted the legs short but not as short as the body. ("but make sure you don't leave them too long.")

" Make the head look like it fits the body. Don't take too much off the head, but there is too much there now."

"I like the ears long."

" I like the mustache the way it is, but can you do something with this?" 

She was holding the hair on both sides of the dogs cheeks.

"He has beautiful eyes. I want them to show."

"Clip the hair on the top of his nose off so I can see his eyes."

 I neatened the ears.

I blended the top of the head into the back of his neck and the top of his ears.

I skimmed the #4f blade down the sides of his face.

I clipped the top of his nose with a #10 with the grain, and blended into the top of the mustache.

I scissored under the eyes, and blended the hair into the sides of the face.

I left the mustache from his nose to the corner of his mouth, and neatened it up.

Then I looked at him and said; " Oh well, we'll see if I got it right."

I figured it was a 50/50 chance she would like it.

My husband took the dog out.

He popped his head back in a minute later.

"Oh no." I thought.

"She likes it. She wants you to write down what you did for the groomer down at the shore."

I hope that groomer doesn't get mad at me for telling her how to groom the dog.

My first appointment of the day tomorrow is the 17 year old Boarder Collie.

The owner said he does not like being groomed.  :(

Wish me luck.

Happy Grooming, MFF

What a Day

I had to pick up a dog today.

This guy was waiting for me when I got to work.

He is a new customer.

He is 17 years old.

He was sent home from Pet***t a couple of weeks ago unfinished.

They said he was stressed out, and sent him home.

All they did was clip his body.

No bath, nails, ears, or finish clip.

Seventeen years old.

Is this my payback for taking a long weekend?

 

I personally think that if the groomer had bathed the dog first instead of fighting a blade through a dirty coat full of undercoat, he may not have gotten stressed.

I let him lay down for the bath.

I also kept the sprayer on with warm water aimed at him for the entire bath to help keep him warm.

The other groomer did a pretty good rough clip.

His owner wanted him very short.

He really perked up after the bath.

It feels good to be clean no matter how old you are.  :)

   I ran a #7f over him, and blended his head and ears with a #5f blade.

Then scissored up his tail, which he was not crazy about at all.

I have a feeling he was pretty spunky in his younger days.

You would think that one elderly dog a day was enough, right?

Nope.

Thought that I would groom another 17 year old dog.

I have been grooming this little lady for all of her 17 years.

She is still a doll, but she is so bony now that I can hardly run a blade over her body.

Why is it when dog goes blind they want to walk all over your table.

You would think that they would be too scared of falling and stand still.

I do the best I can.

She also does not like her face fooled with anymore.

Not to sound morbid, but as long as they stay alive for the grooming, I am happy.

I get them back home as quick as I can.

You would think that two 17 year old dogs would be enough for one day, right?

Nope, again.

This one is 15 years old.

This one was not on the books today, but Mom said she was.

I had had a cancellation, sick owner, so instead of arguing with the owner about not having her on the books, I took her.

The picture is blurry because this little lady never stops moving.

Even when you are holding her.

Three elderly dogs before noon.

Can I go home now?

Nope!

Another new customer.

This one came in with another dog that looked just like her.

He was very sweet.

I gave him to my daughter to groom.

I groomed this one.

I was getting a vibe off of her, and her owner for that matter.

Her Mom was singing her praises just a little too much.

I could tell that the dog was very nervous.

Oh, and Dad, very firmly, told me not to 'cut her like a poodle'.

As you can see they already did some cutting on her themselves.

This picture is of her after the bath.

I was going to take a before the bath picture, but she turned out to be kennel shy, and by the time I got her out of the kennel I had forgotten all about the picture.  :/

She was terrified of everything.

The water.

The towel.

The dryer.

The clippers.

Luckily, all you had to do was let her sniff things, combs, brush, clippers, scissors, and she would calm down.

A lot of baby talk helped a lot too.

She did start to bite when I was scissoring her feet, but I talked her through it.

I also saved her nails and ears for last.

She even surprised me by being very good as I talked to her while doing them.

Mom couldn't believe that they were so good for us.

I don't know why...she told me they were good.  :/

If your dog is a biter, tell me before I groom them!

Oh, she doesn't look like a Poodle, does she?

 I didn't take a picture of my next two dogs.

They were regulars.

Good and easy regulars.

I finished my day with this little guy.

Should be easy, right?

Well, let's just say he is getting better...for the finish anyway.

We are still working on the bath and blow dry.  :)

He has gotten much, much better for the finish.

Don't say boo to him.

Remember the cartoons where the cat is hanging from the light fixture with all of his hair sticking up on end?

That would be this little guy if you make a loud noise.

No old dogs tomorrow.

At least I don't think so.

I don't look at what is coming in the next day.

Although I do know that I have a 17 year old Boarder Collie coming in Saturday.

I think I feel a cold coming on.

Oh darn, I forgot, I don't get sick days.

Happy Grooming, MFF

Tuesday's Tip #22 Long Ears

I thought that I would stick with the long ears for this weeks tip.

As I talked about in yesterdays post, I have a few of customers who like their dogs ears left very long.

You spend time combing, brushing, bathing, drying, and combing, brushing again, and then trimming.

After all of that you put them in the kennel to wait for their owner to pick them up.

The owner arrives, you go to the kennel to get their dog, and there he/she is with all of that long ear hair in their mouth!

The hair has been chewed.

It is tangled.

It is wet.

It has to be brushed and dried again while the owner is waiting.

This is when I pull out my trusty childrens hairbands.

I use them to tie up the ends of the ears.

This way the ears stay out of the way of the dogs mouth.

It is important you make sure that the hairbands are placed at least 1/2 inch below the end of the ear leather.

When the owner comes to pick up all I have to do is, pull out the hairbands, run a brush through the ears and off they go.

I buy fancy bows for my girls to wear all of the time.

I think it is cuter then wrapping them.

I do not offer this to customers, because I am afraid that when they put the hairbands back in they will tie it too close to the ear leather, or tie it right around the ear leather, and it will somehow come back to haunt me.

But, it is great for saving those ears till the owner picks up.

Hope this helps.

Happy Grooming, MFF

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