Scissoring/Clipping Faces and Drying methods

[hlschin]

I am not very good with faces. I haven't come up with a good technique. Everytime I get a face (think shih tzu, lhasa, yorkie... that kind of thing) looking decent, the dog shakes and it looks like **** again. I've tried scissoring which although I don't feel I'm good at it I like better than clipping (with a guide comb). How do you go about doing long haired faces? Do you scissor with the hair in it's natural position, do you pull the hair on each cheek/side of face up and scissor it even, do you use guide combs?

Another problem I seem to have is the hair on the muzzle close to the nose that sometimes kinda sticks straight out. I may need to post a picture to show what I mean on this one.

Also, I have a large kennel type edemco dryer (the whole kennel is a dryer, it has a temp control and gauge that shows temp and humidity) and a forced air dryer with 3 larges hoses for cage drying. I almost always use the edemco one (especially for the big guys) and just let them dry completely in there. I do brush them every now and them to dry them a bit faster. I have used the other dryer to fluff dry some of the smaller dogs. My question is how important is fluff drying? What difference does it make versus cage drying?

[rapuzzled]

For the drying I do definitely think that fluff drying is important. You will get a much nicer finish. Do a search. There was a recent post about fluff vs. cage drying, and it offered a lot of excellent advice.

As for longer heads I will usually use a comb attachment. That can do a lot of the set work for you. Then I will comb forward, and fluff out. I might also grab an ear and shake a little to make it settle. If you just scissor and the dog shakes your right the head is going to look uneven if you don't fluff and shake.

As for the hair on the muzzle I may do different things. For some thinners will work well. For others I may shave a little, skimming with a seven. If it's a short nosed dog like a shihtzu I will take it even closer with a ten, maybe even a thirty. It's really hard to describe with words, lol.

Anyway, good luck, and btw welcome to the board!!!

[SpikeyTheYorkie]

GRRR, I just typed this HUGE response and then I hit something and it disappeared. I'm not sure if it was sent or not, so I'll just skip right to the drying part, which is what I realized I'd forgotten in the orignal post. If it (original post) shows up, great, if it doesn't I'll type it up again, lol.

For drying big dogs, I get MUCH better results (deshedding) by hand drying them with a High Velocity(HV) dryer of 58,000 FPM (Feet Per Minute) airflow such as the K9II or the Air FOrce Master Blaster. I don't do any "pre-work," just right to the tub.

I towel dry very well, and use moisture magnets too. I also tie a towel around the dogs head and/or neck to muffle the sound and to dry the neck hair a little quicker, as the dogs can be sensitive (and who's to blame them) with a dryer near their ears/faces. And dry, brush, hand dry, brush, or at the same time if you can. (Poodles look best when fluff dried with a stand dryer but I don't have one where I am now, so I use this same method on poodles).

If you don't already have it, the new "grooming bible" is "Notes From the Grooming Table" by Melissa Verplank, it's got a lot of good bathing/drying instructions and I'd wished I'd taken her ideas to heart earlier, but better late than never.

For speed I've taken her idea (but brought to my attention later by someone on these boards) by wrapping a clean dog in towels, putting the dog in a kennel sitting on towels, and then bath another dog, wrap it in towels, and then go back to the first, etc...soaks up a lot of water while saving me time.

For faces, if you dont' have a stand dryer, take the concentration nozzle off your hv dryer and use it on them that way. Hope you get some good ideas here.

Tammy in Utah

[SpikeyTheYorkie]

Doggone it, it didn't work. Ok, I'll try it again. After the dog's face (say, a shih tzu) is fluffy, clean, dry and COMBED OUT, I do this:

1. Take some length off the head with a snap-on comb. I will also run this same comb down the sides of the face from the head down to in front of the ear and down below that.

2. Comb bangs forward, scissor off, including hair by the sides of the eyes.

3. Trim chin hair to the desired length, keeping in mind that the top, sides, and chin are supposed to be the same length unless the owner asks otherwise or for some cosmetic reason, etc...Then comb the sides of the hair UPWARD. Imagine a circle. Anything sticking OUT of that circle gets scissored off. Re-comb/scissor and check several times, blending the sides of the face into the top of the head.

4. Do the same to the other side. Don't forget to scoop the eyes and if the shih tzu is getting a short face, generally I think most groomers shave down the bridge of the nose on this breed.

With yorkies I do the same thing, except I leave little feathers of hair in front of the ear to keep them from looking like DUMBO EARS, if you know what I mean. Also, I really comb the hair next to the eyes on yorkies and scissor off because that has helped me blend the sides of the face.

Hopin' this helps! You can see some photos, just go back to the main page with forums, then scroll way down to the "CHeck out my grooms" forum and the "Before and after" forums. Some of my dog's photos are posted there as well as many others from this website.

Tammy in Utah

[Arrooh]

one thing

I've done is scissor the head and face first. Inevitably the dog shakes etc. and something looks quite uneven. I snip off then. I take most faces and mustaches shorter than many groomers. While I think the hairy face looks so cute, I find the neatness and cleaniness appeals to me and my customers with a more scissored face (sort of like Spikeys as a matter of fact). On some real floppy heads I will comb up, hold the hair up between fingers and snip like human hair dressers. I don't use a snap on comb on heads, but maybe some day. I like scissoring.

[PAWS]

I will use snap on combs with my taxi vac to get the general length roughed in (in reverse, but the same sides of the head as Spikey). Then, I comb the entire head into sections and trim the ends off like a hairdresser at a people salon. If it looks choppy afterward, I will go over the sections, roughly, with blending shears. I like shorter head/faces too, because it just looks clean...especially if the body is short. If the body is a little longer, I just blend it in where the head hair meets the neck, all around, by hand scissoring sections. I take big sections, so it really goes rather fast.