Whoops

[Jedd]

The owner was watching me groom her Shih Tzu. Half way through she reached over and picked up the tail then asked if this was normal. My eyes bulged out. Umm, no. It's not. She said that it was long when she brought the dog in. I said, "Lookie there, that dog's tail ain't got no hair."

I'm normally so slow that by the time I finish the dog it needs another hair cut again.... but I can sure whack me some tail hairs off without even knowing it.

[RudyRoo]

Whoops is right!! What did you do?? Did you catch it with your clippers, or think it was a 5th leg and shave it>>>lol

[odette]

How embarassing! Super glue to the rescue! lol , hope she wasn't to mad.

[gottalovegracie]

Not hard to do if the little rascal is a tail tucker!! Yikes! lol

[Raffyroo]

That is the stuff of my nightmares. Bye bye long tail.

[Pixie]

You're right, that's a BIG WHOOPS!!! How did you handle it? Was the owner understanding?

[Jedd]

Before this happened she mentioned that the kids had stepped on it's tail and a lot of hair had been pulled out. So the tail was really scraggly before this anyway. So she didn't seem to mind too bad. Half of the hair was still left and it didn't look too bad except for about a half inch of nub sticking out past the hair. I'm just glad that I didn't cut the tail itself.

I should've put a bow on that nub and told her that it was all the rage in Europe.

[puppy love]

Never actually done that, but I can totally see it happening if you have a tail tucker and are using your clipper vac! I have had to catch the tail before when they tucked it down before the clipper vac got it, but no WHOOPS yet...knocking on wood...

[PoodlePal]

For those tail tuckers, using my hemostats I grab some the hair at the end of the tail. I then pull the tail up over the dog's back and secure the hemostat to my grooming arm so the dog can't tuck the tail between it's legs.

[neanea]

I usually use those terry cloth pony tail bands to "coral" the tail before I start clipping. I have a couple of clients that would FREAK if one single hair was touched on their tails, so I've adopted this method to prevent me from the accidental OOOPSIE!

Glad your client was understanding

[Moonpiepoodlz]

I usually use those terry cloth pony tail bands to "coral" the tail before I start clipping.

I'll do the same thing or I'll braid it to keep it out of the way.

[felzenhaus]

Whoops. But look at it this way, the dog is fine and you learned a lesson that you won't forget. Sometimes those are the best lessons when you do it yourself because you'll be watching and using all the tips here. Trust me we've all done those kinds of things. Part of the learning process.

[rapuzzled]

Yup! I've done it, and of course it was on the dog that has a permanent mark on the file highlighted and reading DO NOT CUT EARS OR TAIL.