My New Toy

So, what is the best way to wash a dog?

I have read some really heated debates on this subject on some of the grooming forums.

By Hand, or Recirculating System?

I have tried so many different systems over the years, and I always go back to hand washing.

I can't help it.

Even with the recirculating system, I would still scrub the dog with my hands. lol

I just don't feel like I have really cleaned a dog until my hands have been all over it.

I also want to feel every lump or bump so that I can inform the owner.

I want to feel when the dog is clean.

Yes, I think you can feel when a dog is clean, even when the shampoo is still on the dog.

Anyway, I am not going to debate the hand washing vs recirculating systems.

I feel you should use whatever you feel gets the dog clean, and not judge someone for what they like to use.

 The bottom line...a clean dog.

I have been looking for a shampoo dispenser.

Right now we use small squeeze bottles or pump shampoo right out of the gallon.

I feel that pumping the shampoo out of the gallon jug is wasting shampoo, and mixing the little bottles all day is time consuming.

So what the heck do I want?

I want something that I could mix up enough shampoo to bathe 4-5 small to medium dogs or 2-3 large dogs before I have to fill it up again, and before the shampoo gets cold.

Why so few dogs?

Because I like the shampoo to be warm when I apply it to the dog.

I think it makes the bath more pleasant for the dog.

I don't mind mixing shampoo a couple of times a day, I just don't want to do it before every dog.

The pet grooming industry makes a number of shampoo dispensers, and I have tried a lot of them.

Some, you fill a large 5 gallon (or more) tank with a shampoo mix at the beginning of the day, so it is ice cold before you finish using it.

Some, mix warm water with the shampoo as you are putting it on the dog.

I have tried two of these types of systems, and both of them had constant problems with the shampoo lines clogging up.

They also shot the water on the dog with so much force, that half of the soap and water shot back onto me.

The force of the shampoo and water mix also scared small dogs.

Well, I think that I found something that I like.

I can mix up a gallon of really warm shampoo, and spray it straight onto a dry dog.

 The nozzle has just enough pressure to push the shampoo into the dry coat, but not scare the dog.

It took me only seconds to apply the shampoo to one side of this dogs dry coat.

Then I could scrub with my hands to my hearts content. :-)

That is all I want, a simple, quick way to apply the shampoo.

The small gun applicator fits nicely in your hand.

The spray is wide enough to cover the dog quickly, but narrow enough to also use on the face.

I can get very close to the dog without the stream of the shampoo spraying back on me.

So, what in the world am I using?

 A Roundup Premium Sprayer.

It is a pressurized sprayer.

I bought the 1 gallon sprayer to test it out.

This weekend I will be buying the 2 gallon sprayer for my most used shampoo.

The one gallon sprayers will be used for shampoos that are not used as often, and for Creme Rinse.

 The applicator gun fits comfortably in your hand.

It also comes with a long extension wand for the applicator gun.

Way too long to use.

It also locks in the on position if you have a large hairy dog that will take a little while to soap up, and you don't want to have to squeeze the handle to whole time.

It comes with three nozzles.

I am using the red, high volume fan nozzle.

I know that this is not for everyone.

But, if you are like me, and you like to hand wash only, this is a great way to quickly apply the shampoo without paying $400-700 for a shampoo dispensing system.

I bought the 1 gallon sprayer for under $20 at Wal-Mart.

I wish I had had this in my van when I was mobile.

I was always trying to find ways to save water in the van.

I would mix a couple of gallons of shampoo before I left the house, and then pour some shampoo out into a smaller bottle to put it on the dry dog.

I always hated that some of the shampoo mix would go down the drain while shampooing the dog.

The sprayer sprays the shampoo into the coat just enough that there is very little waste.

I like it .

It is easy to use, and easy to clean.

One other thing, if you do deside to try it, do not make my mistake and get the cheaper version.

The Roundup brand has the better pressure and the better applicator gun.

Believe me, I learned the hard way.

Oh, before I go.

Look what I got today.

These were from a new customer.

She brought them when she came to pick up her dog.

She was so impressed with the way I talked to her when she dropped off her dog, and with the way I treated her dog in the lobby that she bought me these flowers.

I was so surprised when my husband brought them back to me.

"What are those for?" I asked him when he brought them into the grooming room.

"Sunshine's owner brought them for you," he informed me.

"Why? She hasn't even seen her dog yet," I said, confused.

"She might not even like what I did," I told my husband.

"She said she liked how you treated her and her dog when she came in," he informed me.

Wow, that was better then a tip.

She really made my day.

Oh, and she liked how I groomed her dog too.  :-)

Happy Grooming, MFF

Tuesday's Tip #20 Cleaning up the Lip LIne

One of my pet pevees is...

Poodles with full faces.

I can't stand them.

My Poodles will always have clean faces.

It's just me, I like clean faces.

Yes, the round ones are cute on some dogs, but I can't stand smelly, stinky, food filled hairy faces.

And, most of all I hate when I see dogs chewing on the hair that is growing into their mouths.

You know what I mean don't you?

Those dogs that sit there with their head bobbing up and down frantically, while their tongue is constantly trying to work the hair out of their mouth.

 So I have a little trick that I do.

It takes away all of that hair around the lip line that grows into their mouth, but doesn't effect the finished look of the full face.

This tip also works well for those dogs that get all of that icky rawhide stuck in the hair around the mouth.

I use this trick on any dog that has a lot of hair around their mouth.

This guy was going to town chewing on all of that long hair growing into his mouth.

That is the hair I am going to get rid of.

First, I pull all of the hair that I don't want to cut up and hold it out of the way.

Then I clip only the very edges of the lip line with a #15 or #40 blade.

I use the last few teeth on the corner of my blade to do the clipping.  (in red)

The green area is where I clip.

Don't you just love that every dog feels that this is the time to stick their tongue out, or try to lick.

One of these days I am going to pass out while holding my breath clipping these dogs.  :-)

Nice and clean.

All of that sticky, smelly, slobbery hair gone.

Even with all of  that hair gone on the lip line, the face is still full.

No more chewing on those long hairs.

Below is a short clip of me clipping out the lip line on a full face.

This tip also works well on some matted faces.

Sometimes you can clip out mats along the lip line and use the longer hair that hangs down to cover what you had to clip.

For this tip, I feel that using the clipper is safer and quicker then using scissors. 

Hope this helps.  :-)

Happy Grooming, MFF

Once a Year Grooms...Grrr

Before I start this post today, I have an update on the kitty left in a carrier, in the pouring rain, out in front of our shop.

He has had his shots.

He has been neutered.....Hallelujah!!

He is very friendly and affectionate......if only we could get him to stop giving the love bites.

He loves and gets along great with our dogs.

We named him 'Radar'.

There is only one problem.

My son is having a hard time getting his school work done.

Radar loves to sleep on his books while he is trying to read.

This is the last picture that I could take before I had to put the camera down to meet the demands of an overly affectionate, and crazy orange shop kitty.

On to the post.

It's that time of year again.

Those once a year grooms.

A few weeks ago my husband came into the grooming room and asked me to come look at a dog that came in for the Self-Serve.

This is what I saw.

The owner was getting ready to give him a bath in the Self-Serve.

I talked the owner out of bathing the dog, and into making appointment.

She had to have a Saturday appointment.

She had to wait 3 weeks for a Saturday.

That was okay with her, she would go home and work on him herself in the mean time, because he loves to be brushed.

 He still looked the same when he came in this past Saturday.

His Mom reminded me, at least a dozen times that "he loves to be brushed."

I know that you will think I am nuts when I say this, but I actually like doing these once a year dogs.

There was a time in my early grooming years that a dog like this would scare me to death or send me into tears.

Now I look at them as a challenge.

The first thing I do is tell the owner the dog has to be shaved.

I don't want the owner to think that there is even a remote possibility that I could save any of the coat.

Let them be pleasantly surprised if I can.

Then I start checking out the coat and thinking about what blade I am going to get through the coat.

So my challenge to myself is, to save as much of this coat as possible.

Not for the owner, but for the dog.

I like to test my skills, and use whatever tools that I have to save as much coat as possible.

I will not cause a dog pain to save a coat.

When I say 'save', I mean that I don't think that every matted dog that comes in has to be automatically shaved with a 7, 10 or 15.

 If I am able to get a 4 or 5 blade through a matted coat, I am tickled pink.

Any longer blade is an added bonus for me.

I feel that the longer I am able to keep the coat, the less chance of irritation or owner over reaction.

So, what blade was I able to get through this coat?

 After a Best Shot bath and Creme Rinse, and a HV blow dry to pull the mats away from the skin, I was able to get a 3/4 HT blade through the coat. (19mm)

All except one leg that was too tight.

So, I ended up using a 5/8HT blade on him. (16mm)

His coat is very thick and wavy, so it left the coat looking nice and plushy.

I saved his ears with the help of the Mat Splitter.

I shaved out the sides of his head, and under his ears with a 7F, and let the longer hair from the top of is head fall to cover the shaved spots.

The tail?

I very carefully scissored 3/4 of the matted tail off, then dematted the rest.

The hair left on his tail was about 2" long.

I forgot to take an after picture of the tail.  :(

I hate a naked looking dog.

That's just me.

I clip them naked if I have to, but it makes me happy if I don't.

Isn't it a great feeling when you can make a dog feel good?

Happy Grooming, MFF

Grooming without Scissors

Earlier this week I read, on one of the grooming forms, about a groomer who applied for a job, and informed the shop owner that she did not use scissors to groom.

The shop owner told the groomer that the position was filled because she did not want to fool with hiring a groomer that did not use any scissors to groom.

After reading the post and the comments that followed, I got to thinking.

I wondered what her grooms looked like.

The more I thought about it, the more curious I got.

Could I groom an entire dog without picking up my scissors?

I have done a lot of skimming over the years.

Mostly just to skim to take off the bulk of the hair before I do the scissor finish.

I have always used a #7F blade to skim, but for a finer finish I decided to use the #40 blade setting on my cordless clipper.

Well, today I tried it on three different dogs.

I wanted to try it on different hair types.

I did not have time to do each of the dog entirely, so I did parts of the dogs.  :)

I also videoed each one of these dogs so that you could see from start to finish that I did not use scissors.

I also sped up the videos, and added some music, so that they would not be quite so boring.

Just mute the music if you don't like it.  :-)

First was a Cock-a-Poo.

This Cock-a-Poo was getting a #4F on the body, and a 3/4 blade on the legs.

The owners like the top of the head on the short side, and the top of the nose shave short.

I decided to use the #40 blade setting on my cordless clipper.

I wanted to get as smooth and clean a finish as possible.

I found that skimming against the growth of the hair seemed to work the best.

I also used the clipper to cut about a 1/4 " off of the ears.

I was very happy with the way the ears turned out.

Here is a short clip of doing an ear.

I wish I could speed up like that in real life!

This is the head finished.

I did not use any scissors at all on the head...at this point.

After I finished taking this picture, I did pick up my scissors and go over the face and head a little.  :-)

I did not need to do a lot.

I was surprised how nice it turned out.

I did video the whole grooming on the head.

Here is the link if you would like to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-gOECVmEho

I also finished the front and back legs without scissors.

This is one back leg.

This is the front leg.

I did not use any scissors on these two legs.

I only had time to do one side of the dog this way.

I could finish the legs faster with my scissors.

I was slow with the clippers because I was being so careful, and always on guard in case the dog moved suddenly.

This is the side that I finished without scissors.

If you would like to see the video of the legs being finished with only the clipper, click on the link below. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpaMoeaGbQk

The next dog that I tried grooming without scissors on was a Labradoodle.

The finished leg in this picture was done with scissors.

I wanted to try and match the finished leg by using only a clipper.

This dog was roughed in with a 5/8 blade.

This is the leg after I did the finish work with my clippers.

No scissors used.

This is a side view.

This is a back view of the leg.

I used the #40 blade setting on my cordless clipper for the finish work on this leg also.

If you would like to watch a video of me finishing this leg without scissors, click on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiKhxNyG1lk

The next thing I tried was the head.

This head. >

Yes, I am nuts.

The owners like her eyes to just peek out of all of  that hair.

Once again, I used the #40 blade setting on my cordless clipper.

I was holding my breath that she would not jerk her head at the wrong time.

This is her head after I finished using the clippers to do the finish work.

It turned out okay.

I did feel like I had to pick up my scissors and do some more finish.

Guess what?

While doing a little bit of touch up with my scissors, she jerked her head!

I had to take the top of her head a little tighter to fix the small hole in her hair.

All of that skimming with clippers and she waits to jerk her head while I am scissoring.  :-/

If you would like to see the video of her head being finished without scissors, click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB1o_26ysK4

I tried one more hair type.

Straight hair on a Yorkie.

This little guys owner likes him to be shaved short, short, short!

This is his face after I finished skimming with the clippers.

I did follow up with scissors.

There was not much left to scissor, but I feel that the scissors left a softer finish than the clippers.

If you aren't sick to death with the videos, you guessed it, I videoed this one too.

You will notice in this video that I had not finished clipping the body yet.

I needed to crab my husband between the phone and Self-Serves walking in, so he could video for me.

Here is the link for this little guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-CYOsJ69nM

It is kind of nice to know that I could finish a dog without scissors.

I am sure that I would get faster at it over time.

So, if one day I find that all of my 20 pairs of scissors have gone dull at the same time, I can fall back on my clippers.

Happy Grooming, MFF