Scissoring a Poodle Topknot...

...my way.

I say my way, because I am sure that different groomers scissor topknots different ways, all with the same end result.

I was asked to show how I scissor my Poodle topknots.

So, this is my way.

Over the years, the biggest complaint that I would get about topknots, is that the hair over the eyes grows back too fast.

I am sure that every groomer out there has had a Poodle come in where the owner has chopped a big hole in the topknot, right over the eyes, because the hair was hanging down over the eyes, and they could not wait to bring the dog into you.

Because of the complaining, I started to take my Poodle topknots tight.

That does not mean that I scissor all of my top knots short.

It means that I scissor the over the eyes and the sides tight.

 

As you can see, all of the topknots are scissored tight over the eyes and on the sides of the head.

I use the height of the topknot to determine how full the topknot will be.

Here are the steps that I use to scissor my topknots.

The most important thing, before you even think about scissoring, is how you prep the topknot to be scissored.

Even if you are a groomer that kennel dries your dogs, you must take the time to hand dry the topknots. 

Straight from the tub is best in my opinion.

TIP: After towel drying the dogs head, rub about a quarter size amount of mousse into the topknot.

Then blow dry the topknot.

Make sure that the topknot is completely brushed out and dry.

The mousse will help to stiffen up the hair, and give it more body so that you can get a nice topknot.

 

Once the topknot has been fluffed, brushed, and combed I am ready to scissor.

 

I scissor my topknots in 6 steps.

I start with scissoring over the eyes.

I hold my scissors at an angle for the first few cuts so that I do not cut too close over the top of the eyes.

 I follow around the eye to the side of the head.

Make sure that the shave line goes from the corner of the back of the eye, to the top of the ear.

If the Poodle has ears that are set too high, I just shave the face making the shave line straight back to the ear using the corner of the eye as a guide.

After I have scissored a little over the eyes, I move to step two and scissor both sides of the topknot, over the ear.

I like to toss the ear back so that it is out of the way while I am scissoring a clean line to the ear, on each side of the topknot.

Then I put the ear back down and start the cut over the top of the ear.

I scissor over the top of the ears, moving to the back of the head.

I like to blend the back of my topknots into the back of the dogs neck.

I do not like a crisp, defined line going across the back of the topknot, separating it from the neck.

As I said before, this is how I scissor my topknots.

It does not mean that this is the way you have to, or should scissor a topknot.

Out of all of the Poodles that I groom, only one customer asks for a sharp line around the back of the topknot.

As I get to the back of the ear, I start to curve my scissors downward, so that I will be able to blend it into the back of the neck.

I hold the ear forward so that I can scissor and clean out behind the ear.

Remember to constantly comb and fluff the hair.

My third step is to scissor up the sides of the topknot.

I scissor up on each side of the head.

I scissor from the shave line, working my way up the sides, curving into the top of the topknot to start to shape it.

I like to cut only a little hair at a time, widdling away at the hair.

When shaping the sides, I hold the head in many different directions so that I can see where I need to scissor.

I hold the head down, and turn it sideways.

Once I have shaped up the sides, I move back to the front of the topknot and shape up over the eyes.

Again, I scissor a little at a time, scissoring from the top of the eyes, up towards the top of the topknot.

On to step 5.

Now I scissor the very top of the topknot, working from the front of the head to the back.

How much I take off of the top determines how full I leave the topknot.

My next to last step is to scissor the back of the topknot.

As I said before, I like to blend the back of my topknots.

I scissor the back of the topknot down into the neck.

After all of those steps are done, I still go back over the entire topknot, shaping and fixing anything that still needs scissoring.

I still need to scissor this topknot more, because the owner likes it very short and tight.

That is how I get the basic shape that I want.

I hope that this helps.

As I said at the beginning of the post, this how I scissor my topknots.

My customers like them.

They like the hair short over the eyes.

I don't get very many complaints anymore about hair falling in the eyes. :)

I only hear that now from customers that go months in between groomings.

I am still trying to figure out how to stop the hair from ever growing back over the eyes, since so many people think that the hair cut should last forever. :)

Well maybe not forever....just months, and months, and months.............

Happy Grooming, MFF

 

 

What Do People THINK That They See?

I have often wondered this while grooming.

Mainly because I groom in front of my shops window.

After years of grooming in rooms with no windows, I really like having my table next to the window.

The dogs like looking outside while I groom also.

I also don't have anything to hide when I groom.

There are sometimes when I am not so sure it is a good idea to groom in front of a window.

Like whenever I groom this guy.

I actually really like this guy, but he is not a groom that I look forward to.

Why?

Because he is so spoiled, and can be very nasty when he wants to be.

There is no rhyme or reason to what will set him off.

Yes, he will not hesitate to eat you alive if you do something that he does not like.

It can be something as simple as touching his belly, or foot, or tail, or...anything.

One minute he can be wagging his tail and the next trying to eat you, then wagging his tail at you again, pawing you to pet him.

Yes, his owner knows how he can be.

That is why he has a leash that says 'Bad to the bone' all over it.

Anyway, while grooming him last week, he went off on me.

I was almost finished grooming him, and only had his back feet and legs left to scissor.

He had been doing pretty good up to that point, just a little growling here and there, but that is not unusual for him. 

He likes to do a lot of talking while you groom him.

I slowly picked up his foot, (you don't do anything quickly with him) and started to scissor... and wham, he swung around and grabbed my hand in his mouth biting several times, get harder with each bite.

I grabbed him.

I grabbed him with both hands.

One on each side of his neck.

I grab him to stop him from biting.

Then I proceeded to tell him just what I thought of him going after me like that for no good reason.

I didn't yell at him.

I held him firmly, turned him to look right at me, and I told him that he was nasty and that I didn't deserve for him to go after me for doing nothing but scissoring his feet.

I told him to behave and grow up, and that I was not going to put up with that crap.

I said all of this to him in the best 'your in trouble Mommy voice' that I could do.

You could actually see his eyes go from the crazed, cujo look, back to those soft eyes in the picture above.

It is like looking at two different dogs.

The eyes soften, the tail starts to wag, and you can almost hear him saying; "oh, I am sorry, I didn't really mean it.

Unfortunately, once his bitting dog button has been pushed, you have to muzzle him to finish.

And all I had left to do was 5 minutes of work.

Okay, back to what I was writing this post about...

In the middle of my giving the dog a lecture, with my hands still on each side of his neck to keep him from biting, a car pulled up in front of my shop with a clear view of me holding this dog.

Believe it or not, in the middle of keeping him from biting and lecturing him, it flashed in my mind...'what in the world must these people, out in that car, think I am doing to this dog with my hands on his neck and an upset look on my face.'

I have often thought about what non-groomers, pet owners, see and think when they watch a dog being groomed.

I read a news article one time about creative grooming, where they had at least a dozen pictures of dogs from different creative grooming competitions.

I was blown away as I read the comments.

Most of the comments talked about how sad, upset, and humiliated the dogs looked in the pictures.

So much so, that I actually scrolled through the pictures again to see what in the world those were seeing that I wasn't.

I DID NOT see sad, upset, and humiliated dogs.

I saw happy, healthy, although very colorful dogs.

I have been in Petsomethings and heard people make comments as they watch the groomers groom.

"Oh, she is pulling that poor dogs leg."

" Look how she is holding the dogs head. That's mean." 

Those are just a few of the comments that I have overheard.

So what does a pet owner see?

Do they see a dogs leg being pulled?

Or, do they see what the groomer is actually doing?

Holding the leg firmly away from the body so that the armpit can safely, and clearly be seen to be clipped.

Do they think that I am pulling the dogs head backwards?

Or, do they know that I am gently holding the dogs head up so that I can see what I am cutting.

Do they also realize, that if this dog wants to move her head, she can very easily pull out of my grip.

Do they think that I am lifting this dogs leg out of it's hip socket?

Or, do they know that I only lift the dogs leg as high as each dog can tolerate.

That once again I need to be able to see what I am clipping.

Do they think that I am purposely hurting the dog while trying to pluck hair out of the ears.

Or, do the realize that it is something that a lot of dogs are not crazy about, but that I do it as gently and humanely as I can.

Do they know that I massage the dogs ears after I pluck them, and apologize to the dog for having to be the mean guy and pluck it in the first place.

Do they think that I am pinching this dogs ear?

Or, do they realize that I am gently holding that ear very still so that I only cut what I need to cut on the ear.

And, that I am praying that my hold will keep the dog from suddenly turning that same ear into my scissors at the wrong moment.

 Do they think that I am holding the face so tight that I am cutting off the dogs airway?

Or, do they realize that I am gently holding the dogs muzzle so that the dogs head stays still so that it can be scissored.

Do they realize that if you hold a dogs muzzle too tight that it will only make the dog struggle to get away, and that is not what we want.

Do they think that we are choking a dog because we have our hand around the dogs neck?

Or, do they realize that a groomer can hold a dogs neck to keep the dog still without squeezing, or choking the dog in any way.

Do they think that I am pulling and hurting a dogs tail when I wrap my hand around the tail to lift it?

Or, do they realize that wrapping your hand around the base of the tail and gently holding it up is a safe and humane way of lifting and holding the tail.

Do they think that I am squeezing their dog when I tuck its head under my arm to clip the nails?

Or, do they realize that I am letting the dog hide its head under my arm because the dog does not like watching when its nails are clipped.

Do they know that this hold is like a hug, and calms a lot of dogs down when they are having their nails clipped.

 Do they think that we are mean because we hold a dogs chin hair when we groom the face?

Or, do they realize that holding the dogs chin hair does not hurt and helps us to keep the head still enough the scissor safely around the eyes.

Do they realize that once again the dog can pull out of our grip at any time.

I will admit that when I have a dog that I have to muzzle because of biting, or I have a dog that likes to fight a lot on my table, I will close my curtains on my window.

I don't want a passerby to look in my window just as a dog goes nuts on my table and flips all around, because all I can think is that they think that I am the one flinging the dog around the table.

They do not realize that  all I want is the dog to be standing still.

The last thing that a groomer wants is the dog to be flopping all over the place.

It also amazes me how many pet owners think that muzzling a dog is a bad thing.

Sometimes is it very necessary to muzzle a dog.

 A groomers grooming career could come to an abrupt end if bitten badly.

Used correctly, a muzzle is a safe tool for a groomer to use on a dog.

The problem is, when someone sees a muzzle being used on a dog, and the groomer is not able to explain why it is being used, people jump to their own conclusions.

For some reason they seem to like to think that it is the groomers fault that the dog is biting in first place.

I got very upset when my curtain was open for people to see me grab that dog from biting me.

Even though I knew that I was not hurting him, I certainly didn't want them to think that I was hurting him.

Isn't it a crazy world when you always have to worry about what other people are thinking?

I am always very careful about the way I am handling a dog.

This post is one of the reasons why I don't let owners stay with their dogs while I groom them.

For one, I feel that the owner distracts their dog from paying attention to me while I am grooming and I feel that that is a safety issue.

The second reason?.......all of the above pictures.

A single grooming would take forever if I had to stop and explain every hold that I had to use on the dog.

Okay, I am done rambling.

I am still going to groom in front of my window. :)

Happy Grooming, MFF

Sandy...

I freak my family out sometimes by predicting things before they happen.

Nothing big, just little things.

Something will suddenly pop in my head and then it will happen shortly after I thought about it.

It can be a little scarey sometimes.

Whenever this happens, my husbands always asks me; "why don't you ever think about numbers to play?"

Anyway, I freaked myself out yesterday.

Shortly after we got to work, I was getting ready for the day when a thought popped into my head.

'Someone is going to call about a dog that they found during the hurricane that desperately needs to be groomed.'

That was it.

Then, just that quickly, it was out of my head and I forgot about it.

About half an hour later my Vets office called.

They had a client there that had found a dog during the hurricane and it was overgrown and matted and needed to be groomed.

They wanted to know if we could fit the dog in for a grooming.

 It freaked me out, but I didn't even give it a second thought, and told my husband to tell them that we would groom the dog.

This was meant to be, right?

 This is 'Sandy'.

Her new owner found her while taking medicine to her sister during the hurricane.

She saw this little girl in the street dodging cars, and watched her almost get hit twice.

The new owner tried to call to her and get her to come  to her, but the dog ran away.

Later she went back to check on her sister again, and saw the dog again.

This time the dog came to her when she called it.

She brought the dog home.

She took the dog to a Vet and got her checked out and her shots.

She had already bought the dog a new collar and leash.

AND, she is in love with this dog.

Well she should be.

The dog is a doll.

Very shy, calm and sweet.

It is just my opinion, but I do not think that this dog was being cared for properly before this woman found her.

We are guessing that the dog is between 8 months to almost a year old.

Her belly and the inside of her legs were covered in tight mats that were soaked with urine and feces. 

It is my guess, but I feel strongly that this little girl had been spending most of her time in a small, confined area where she was forced to lay in her own mess.

Why was she out in that storm?

The new (temporary) owner is going to keep her while looking for her owner, but to be honest, I really hope that she keeps the dog.

She was a little scared of the water at first, but very quickly realized that it was not hurting her.

I started out drying her with her body smashed up against my chest, and her head under my arm, but by the time I had her half way dry, she was standing on the drying table like a pro.

She was a fluffy thing. :)

She could not see anything.

She was in fairly good shape other than those mats on her belly and the inside of her legs.

I was able to HV dry them away from her belly enough to get a #7 blade under them.

So, she had one naked little belly.

 I decided to clip the rest of her with a purple clip comb and scissor her up.

She was a dream to work on.

How could anyone not love that face?

Her new owner came back to pick her up with a new fluffy bed and a new coat.

She is VERY smitten with this dog.

She asked all kind of questions about how to take care of her.

As I said at the beginning of the post, the dogs new name is 'Sandy' for the hurricane.

Her new owner thought that that name was appropriate.

I agree.

This little girl is such a sweet soul, she deserves a wonderful, safe home.

I was very happy to help make this little girl feel better after being out and alone in such an awful storm. 

Even if I did freak myself out. :)

Happy Grooming, MFF

Wow.....

The last few weeks you may have noticed that I have not been posting very much.

Things started going haywire a couple of weeks ago when I woke up with the toothache from he**.

Never mind that I had already been to the Dentist a couple of weeks before that.

I was not able to get an appointment, for the toothache, till today.

Whatever happen to them working you in when you were in pain?

Anyway, some days the pain was so bad, a dog could have ripped off the side of my face and I would not have cared if it would just take the pain away.

Some days the pain was so bad that neither aspirin nor Motrin would even take even the edge off of the pain.

Those days I groomed my dogs and came home and went to bed. :(

Then comes Sandy.

For three days before Hurricane Sandy hit, our local news stations made it sound like it was the beginning of the end.

I understand it was going to be bad, but they were scaring people to death.

Anyway, we got very lucky.

Even though we live with about a hundred 80 foot Oaks all around our house, 25 of them close enough to hit the house, only one fell during the storm.

Believe it or not, it was my neighbors tree.

It was one of those V shaped double Oaks.

It fell off of his property onto ours, blocking the trail to our horses.

A lot of tree limbs feel around the house, and one hit the corner of my daughters car and did $378 worth of damage, but other than that we made it through pretty good.

Oh yeah, we lost power....

for 3 days....

we got it back today. :)

Let me just say, losing your power is one thing, but when you are on well water, it really sucks when you can't take a shower, or flush your toilets.

Oh, we also lost everything in both of our refrigerators and freezers.

I am not even going to think about the amount of food that was lost.

Don't get me wrong.

I am not complaining the least little bit.

After seeing everything that others on the eastern shore and in New York are going through, the 75 mph wind gusts that we had were nothing.

Well, I say that now, but when you are sitting in your basement with only candlelight and those winds to listen to, all you can do is pray that one of those Oaks falls away from your house, not on it.

Every time we heard a loud thump, or crack we went out to make sure everything was okay.

Just the walk to the horses, to check on them and feed them, was an event.

Nothing like walking through the woods, watching those Oaks sway back and forth, hoping something will not fall on you.

The shop is fine and we only lost one day of work.

The electric came back today, and I had a infected wisdom tooth pulled tonight after work.

So, hopefully everything is back on track now.

I should be back to my regular grooming posts tomorrow. :)

Right now, my face hurts. :/

Oh....one more thing...

To Karen in NJ...I am not sure exactly where you live, and where your shop is in NJ, but I hope that you are doing well, and anyone else on the east coast that reads my blog. :)

Happy Grooming, MFF