SCWT PET TRIM - THE 'BENJI' LOOK

Not all owners of Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers like the breed standard profile. Take "Darcy's" owners, for example. They love their shaggy pooch, and don't want the terrier trim nor the face fall that goes with the breed. They are willing to go with monthly grooming to maintain a slightly longer, informal look. At Transformation Pet Center, Tucson, Arizona, we call this the "Benji" trim, as we started doing this face trim many years ago when the movie of that name came out.

Miss Darcy


Here's a better view of the whole dog:


This style is obtained by using a combination of snap-on combs and scissoring. The exact size of the comb attachment depends on how much I want to take off. Some times I use the clipper vac and a Wahl "A" comb, and take her down all over. On this day, I mostly scissored using chunking shears. This style of texturizing shear works great on SCWT coat. It leaves a natural, feathered edge that does not show cut marks.

Here's what the chunkers look like:


Darcy was first bathed with Espree Doggone Clean shampoo and rinsed with Show Sheen horse grooming spray diluted through the Bathing Beauty recirculating bathing system. She was dried with the Laube Magnum Force dryer. I create a little more force by using a cone attachment from a K9II dryer over the round nozzle that comes with the dryer. The bath took about 5 minutes, the drying about 20. Comb out was another 15-20 minutes. She was somewhat matted, but it brushed right out, thanks to the detangler that was rinsed through the coat and dried. Scissoring and shortening took about 20 minutes. Total time was a little over an hour. That was good time.

Here are some of the tools I used for brushing and combing:
Chris Christensen 16mm T-Brush

This brush is used for line brushing or layering, from the feet up the leg and the underside, up the sides. It brushes out minor tangling without brutalizing the hair cuticle and breaking hair, which just increases matting. You would be amazed how well this brush combs out the SCWT coat when the hair is "treated" with the silcione-based detangler.

Mars Flexy King Brush


Wooden Handle Poodle Comb

This comb is one of my favorite tools of all time. I can groom just about anything with this comb, and it is less painful to the dog than more finely spaced combs.

All of these tools are available from the Birdie shopping cart. Click HERE to go there.

Barbara Bird, is a Certified Master Groomer (CMG) with International Professional Groomers, Inc. (IPG). She has been grooming since 1971. She's too old to do the math, but is still doing great grooming at Transformation Pet Center, Tucson, AZ.
For an appointment, call 520-795-5743

PS. Caveat: I am aware that one ear is shorter than the other. I thought I had corrected that, but whoops guess not enough. I will get it next time. You do not need to bring it to my attention. If I waited for my grooming to be perfect, and to get a perfect photo, I would not have a blog. As Lisa Leady said on Groomer Has It (Episode that aired 6/6/09), "I'm not perfect". If she can admit it and still stand tall, so can I. Lisa Leady is one of my role models, and is one of the most awesome groomers in the Whole World. Go Lisa!

BICHON FRISE SHORT PET TRIM

At Transformation Pet Center in Tucson, AZ, one of our specialties is the Bichon Frise.  Although we love doing the full, scissored show style, many pet owners cannot maintain their dogs with this much coat.  Here is an alternative short style we developed for our clients.  

In this view, you can see that I left a "ledge" over the eyes. This is a very important characteristic of the breed profile. On subsequent visits, however, the owners requested that I shorten even this. You also see there is no extra hair left on the neck. The neck "crest" that is usually present on a show profile gives the arched neck and "attitude" to the Bichon. It was difficult for my artistic self to let go of the neck crest, but it was easy for my customer pleasing self. The owners don't miss it at all!

Operational details: This style was accomplished using the Laube iVac clipper with a Wahl metal snap-on comb. The peach-colored one. The front was clipped straight down and under the chest and the whole underside. The body was clipped from the back of the head, down the sides, and the rear legs were done in a Schnauzer pattern, leaving more in front of the back legs, which was then scissored. The front of the front legs is taken short, and a little more left on the backs of the forelegs and scissored. The feet are scissored round and the tuck-up, or where the back leg meets the side, is scissored in by hand.

The head was done by first clipping the ears the same length as the body. Notice that I left enough hair at the base of the ears to blend into the top of the head, not cutting across the top of the ears Poodle-style. The face was scissored round in the Bichon style, but in front of the ears, instead of into the ears. Many pet groomers do all their Bichons this way, which makes me scream, but in this case, I did it myself. There is an exception to every rule! The decision of whether to blend the ears into the head or leave them out should depend somewhat on the ear set of the individual dog. If the Bichon has a high ear set, or ears that want to stick out (what I call "naughty ears"), leave them out. Otherwise you might want to blend the ears into the head more like the traditional Bichon head. This next dog, owned by the same people, turned out more blended.

By using a vacuum clipper system (iVac) and a snap-on guide comb, and clipping the body into a Schnauzer type pattern, we have created a practical short trim for the Bichon Frise that has a little more "style" than clipping the dog the same length all over. By making the ears very short, we have managed to maintain the classic Bichon expression to the face, without becoming "Poodley". Hope you like it.

Barbara Bird is a Certified Master Groomer and owner of Transformation Pet Center in Tucson, Arizona. Appointments can be made by calling 520-795-5743.

PET SCHNAUZER GROOMING IN TUCSON

The Miniature Schnauzer is one of the most popular of the small breeds.  Grooming styles can differ widely amongst pet groomers.  Here are a few pictures to illustrate how we groom at Transformation Pet Center, Tucson, Arizona.  

"Marcus"

We base our grooming of all breeds on the AKC (American Kennel Club) breed standards and the current show profile. We believe that how breeders are presenting their breed in the show ring demonstrates how they are envisioning the breed characteristics. We use these breed profiles as our fundamental reference for our pet grooming.

Marcus is a very nice boy who cleans up well. This is a tidy groom that is fairly easy to maintain. His body was clippered with a #7 blade on the Laube Speed Feed trimmer. The legs, chest and undercarriage were sculpted with the #6 snap-on comb that comes with the Speed Feed trimmer, and outlined with scissors. The sides of the face and ears were clipped with a #10 on the Speed Feed, and the top of the head with the #7. 

Marcus Front View

Here's Doc!

White Schnauzer

This pup came for his first groom at 8 months. His coat was thin and matted. We chose this "informal" look that suited him well. His body was clipped with a #5 blade.

"Sophie"

Like the dog above, this white Schnauzer has a thin body coat, and mats very easily. We used a Laube Speed Feed trimmer with the #7 blade for the body. The numerous small mats were brushed out with a Mars Flexy King brush (see below). While stunning, the white Schnauzer fur seems to mat in a NY second.

"Coco"

This chocolate Schnauzer was bred for color and diminutive size. The trimmer placed next to her helps to show how tiny she is. This is Coco at 6-7 months. She is not expected to get much larger. Coco's owner has asked us to groom her eyebrows so as to reveal the cream color inside the brows. She also likes more of a "puppy" look to the face, whiskers and furnishings.

"Sport" gets a hand strip.

Although we hand strip several other breeds, Sport is our only hand stripped Schnauzer. Hand stripping is the traditional means of grooming most of the rough coated terrier breeds. Of these, the Schnauzer coat is the most difficult, in my opinion. We do our best with Sport, and fortunately his owners love this look. His head is custom groomed, NOT to the breed standard.

Check out Sport's ears!

There are two reasons we do not clip Sport's ears clean and perfect as we usually like. The aesthetic reason is that we want to soften the look of his ears. Okay, bluntly put, we don't want him to look like a donkey. Sport has a LOT of ears! The safety reason is that Sport is not a good sport about having his ears clipped. He jerks around and endangers himself. There is a time and place for compromise, and when a dog is totally distressed about something like having his ears shaved, we compromise. For Sport, the result works. Always, our work is individualized to suit each animal and can be modified to the client's request.

For Schnauzer mats and tangles we recommend the Mars Flexy King brush.

The Flexy King is uniquely constructed of longer pins on a smaller, flexible pad. It is very well-suited for picking apart mats in the Miniature Schnauzer coat. Lightly spritz with a detangling spray, such as EZ Glide by E-Z groom, and gently work apart the tangles in small sections. Pick, don't press with the brush, and finish with a comb. The Flexy King can be purchased from the author's shopping cart. Click HERE to go there.

Transformation Pet Center is located in mid-town Tucson, Arizona. Grooming is by Certified Master Groomer, Barbara Bird with assistance from Dave (The Slave) Fernandez. We can be reached by phone at 520-795-5743 or email: petpals@dakotacom.net.

HAPPY HAIR HERBAL OIL SPA TREATMENT FOR PETS

The Scented Groomer is pleased to announce an addition to our line of aromatherapy products for pets and their people.

HAPPY HAIR HERBAL OIL has been formulated as a simple and natural nourishing and replenishing treatment for hair that can be used as a spa treatment.  Not only is it great for hair and skin, it has calming and balancing aromatherapy benefits.

HAPPY HAIR HERBAL OIL can be used on dry or damp hair.  For maximum treatment, warm oil by placing the bottle in hot water, apply moderately to dry hair and wrap in a towel.  (We use the adorable doggie robes from Pet Edge.) Hot or not, a good result is obtained by simply rubbing oil on palms of hands and running through the hair.  Do not overuse, and use sparingly on fine soft hair.  Leaving on longer will achieve a greater effect.  It can also be used after shampoo on toweled hair before conditioning, or as a substitute for conditioner.  

OUR INGREDIENTS: 

HAPPY HAIR HERBAL OIL is handcrafted in small batches by The Scented Groomer, the aromatherapy persona of BBird.  We begin with organic Extra Virgin OLIVE OIL from Spain, the same oil as preferred by top chefs.  Olive oil has been used for centuries to improve and enhance skin and hair.  In addition to infusing moisture directly into the hair cuticle, Olive oil will improve the strength and elasticity of hair.  Organic Lavender flowers and Lemongrass are infused into the oil for their balancing and nourishing properties.  For additional value to the hair and skin, and for aromatherapy benefit, we add essential oils of Palmarosa and Ylang Ylang. Ylang Ylang (Canaga odorata) was the key ingredient to a very popular hair treatment of the Victorian age called Macassar Oil.  This natural conditioner is reputed to also stimulate hair growth.  Palmarosa (Cymbopogon martinii) has great moisturizing properties for hair and has a tradition in skin care products for its ability to promote cellular regeneration. Both Palmarosa and Ylang Ylang  are used to balance sebum production.  The aromatherapeutic benefits are calming, balancing, anti-depressant.  The product is preserved with Vitamin E oil (as Tocopherol Acetate).  That's all!  We kept it simple, natural, and organic.  

BONUS BENEFIT: Treat your hands to a sugar scrub!  This simple treatment will have your hands as happy as your hair.  Place about 1 tablespoon sugar (one packet) in the palm of your hand and cover with Happy Hair Herbal Oil.  Mix together in your palms and rub all over your hands.  Pay special attention to your cuticles and any calloused areas.  Take your time, then rinse with warm water and pat dry.  The oiliness will disappear in a minute, leaving your hands nourished and soft. Happy hands!  Used before bathing dogs, groomers will find a quick sugar scrub will protect your skin from the onslaught of cleansing surfactants.  Used after work or before bed, the herbal oil will moisturize and replenish your hands.  We use it in the shower on the throat and neck area, elbows, and any rough spots. 

AVAILABILITY: Happy Hair Herbal Oil Treatment is available only through Show Season Animal Products and BBird.biz.  Look in the aromatherapy "aisle".  

ETERNAL GRATITUDE: Many thanks to our email group,  Groompics-tnt@yahoogroups.com, for indulging me and embellishing my spa day pictures as I developed the marketing image for this product. Several of our members talented in Photoshop "played" with my pictures.  The selected picture was improved by Jenifer Watt of Watt-A-Dog Grooming Salon.  In addition to being a master with Photoshop, Jenifer is the UK distributor for Show Seasons Animal Products.  Contact her for information regarding availability of Happy Hair in the UK. Click here to go there.

 

Terrier Transformation in Tucson

At Transformation Pet Center in Tucson, AZ, we love doing pet makeover grooming that lives up to our name. Here is the story of Belle, a Wire Haired Terrier.

Belle's family had recently moved to Tucson, and she had not been groomed since before the move. She was overgrown, dirty, and whew, did she ever smell bad! Did I say matted? That, too.



Here's a side shot that really shows the extent of the matting on the legs.


The owner admitted to a little home grooming on the head. Love these ears!



I was nearly salivating with the anticipation of "fixing" this dog's hair style and cleaning her up. Okay, I need a life, I admit it. Meanwhile, some lucky pet owners get to benefit from my pouring all my talent into grooming their "babies." These people found me by searching the Internet. I loved that part.

The first thing I did was to rake out the fuzzy body coat with a deshedding blade. Technically, this is called "carding the jacket". The purpose is to promote new growth of hard hair with good color. Carding is a technique used in hand stripping of terriers that I have incorporated into my pet grooming. It helps to maintain a healthier coat.

A key to carding is to gently stretch the skin as you are raking with the grain of coat growth. It looks like this:


This is how much hair I removed in this step:


Next came the bath. Make that two baths. The first bath of EZ Structure shampoo did not get rid of all of the odor. i determined that the coat was rather oily and was holding on to the odor. This dog smelled so bad I questioned my own cleanliness. For a second bath, I chose EZ Groom dEZolve, a degreaser that did the trick. Then I Used Show Season Results Rinse as a finishing rinse. Here she is after bath, dry and brushing out.



You can see traces of the previous grooming. The groomer placed the pattern too high on the shoulder and left something of a "skirt". We don't really want that.

Here is Belle with a new pattern, using a #5 blade:


After scissoring, she looked like this:



A happy Belle says, "My owners are delighted to have me looking like a Wire Fox Terrier again, thanks to Transformation Pet Center. I'm glad we moved to Tucson, so we could find Barbara and Dave."


Thanks for the endorsement, Belle, they can call us at 520-795-5743! You can also click HERE to go directly to the Transformation website and learn more about our grooming service.

ADDENDUM: Critique of previous grooming. It turns out that Belle's former groomer is a friend on one of our groomers' email groups. She would like a little more information about the previous grooming and what needed correcting. It is extremely difficult to critique a grooming that has grown out about eight weeks. From what I could tell, it was not a bad grooming. It looked to me as though the groomer had based her clipper work on one of our grooming books that has lines drawn to show the clipper line. I say that because weeks later I see what appears to be a line across the lower part of the body and shoulder. To my eye, this line is a bit too far up. If you look at the Wire Fox in the show ring, or any of the long legged terriers, there is no fringe underneath the dog, and certainly none on the sides. The lines in the grooming books, however, often appear to suggest that the clipping stops at a line along the side of the dog from the shoulder to the flank. Groomers often refer to the hair underneath that line as t!he "skirt". NEWSFLASH: There is NO SKIRT on the long legged terriers. There is just a little bit of length left underneath the body to accentuate the slope that naturally exists from the flank to the lower chest, but this does not extend up the sides. The clipper work on the shoulder extends just about to the elbow so as to show the shoulder muscle. I think of the terrier as wearing a T-shirt, they are "tough guys", working class dudes, with muscles showing.

It was even more difficult to critique the former grooming of the head, as the owner had done some "emergency" home grooming. But from what I could see, it looked as though the groomer had not taken the hair at the outside corner of the eyes flush to the head. My guess was that it had been left a little long there. Again, this applies to all terrier heads. The WFT head is particularly sharp and narrow, and when we leave it too full on the top at the eyes, the entire head becomes a bit bushy, instead of being a tight "brick" shape. (looking at it straight on).

Because of the interest in this article (and the actual expression of a groomer's desire to learn), I will get some additional pictures of detailing of the Wire Fox Terrier groom in the near future.

Hand Stripping the Pet Border Terrier

The Border Terrier is a small spunky terrier that is a great family pet and a good breed for hand stripping in the pet grooming salon. The body and legs are stripped short, without any noticeable pattern, and the distinct breed characteristic, the "otter" head, is easily obtained by taking everything off except short whiskers. Most Border Terriers have coats that are easily plucked, and most of them tolerate hand stripping with a minimum amount of fussing.

Here is Zoe, a five month old Border Terrier from Yuma, Arizona. Her owners drove three hours to Tucson for her first hand stripping. I was impressed with their commitment. This is the picture that Zoe's owner sent me from their home to allow me to glimpse the coat status:

Yes, she's ready for some work, alright! When they showed up for the appointment, we did a little pre-groom assessment. To do this, I put on a latex glove and pinch some hair from a few places. This tells me how easily (or not) the hair will come out, and gives me an idea of how the dog is going to tolerate the hand stripping. The pre-groom assessment of Zoe indicated that the coat was not going to be super difficult to strip, but neither was it fully "blown" or at the point of nearly fallling out. I also got a clue that Zoe was going to be a little wiggly on the table. I was right on both counts.

I established three major priorities for the grooming session

• Work the head to the proper appearance.
• Get as much of an overall groom as possible in one session.
• Maintain sensitivity to the puppy's tolerance for hand stripping.
  

While hand stripping does not hurt, it is not without sensation either, and my intention is to never make grooming a distasteful experience for a dog, especially a puppy, and especially a pet that does not have to go into the show ring. Our goal is to approximate the show groom, within the limits of the dog's coat and structure and their tolerance of grooming procedures.

In this particular case, we did rather well. (If I may say so myself). There were a couple of places where I cheated with the hand stripping: I clipped her tummy. She was very uncooperative about her tail, and I stripped some and scissored some with blenders. I also used the blenders under her tail. I tidied up the feet with scissors. I wanted to use the clippers to get the ears a little more clean, but she would have nothing to do with the clippers around her face, so I abandoned the idea.

Table time was about 2.5 hours. This included a bath. Bathing hand stripped dogs is another whole subject. I dislike doing it, because it can ruin the results of all the hand work you just did, but pet owners expect bathing as a part of a groom. So we grin and bear it. My gripe is not so much that the shampooing always softens the coat, but that the drying lifts the coat so that it is no longer tight. It is a battle to get the coat to lay right. The "proper" way to dry a harsh terrier coat is sacking, or wrapping snugly in toweling. This presses the hair to the body at the same time it absorbs moisture. For Zoe, I used a combination of high velocity drying with a flat attachment, combing the coat flat, and wrapping with a towel and hugging her to press the coat.

For a few of my hand strips, the owners do the bathing, 7-10 days before the hand stripping. This works for me, but it does not work for many pet owners. They want a clean and fresh dog when they hand over the big price of hand stripping. Zoe's groom was $100.00. They generously tipped $20.00.

Here is Zoe at home after her grooming.

Here are the before/after pics on my grooming table:

It's not a perfect groom. I see things.... I should have pulled more from the chest, where it meets the legs, or trimmed it there. Grooming pictures are almost always humbling, but they help me see what I need to do next time.

OMG, isn't she just the cutest thing? This picture will make you want one!

At Transformation Pet Center, Tucson, Arizona, hand stripping is one of the special services provided by owner/groomer, Barbara Bird, a Certified Master Groomer, with assistance by Dave Fernandez, certified in Sporting Breeds. For appointments call 520-795-5743. More information about our services may be found here: http://www.transformationpetcenter,com/

Chris Christensen "Best Pet Brush"

The Chris Christensen 16 mm T-Brush, a pet brush for all reasons. Most importantly, this brush will separate hair and remove loose undercoat with a minimum of coat damage. Coat damage occurs when hairs are broken or hair cuticles are ravaged by grooming, play, and weather. Just about everything causes hair damage, and accumulates into generalized coat damage. It cannot be avoided, only minimized.

The tools, products, and procedures we use to maintain our pets' coats, as well as our dog's lifestyle all effect the amount of hair damage that accumulates. Today we are looking specifically at brushes.

The most valuable feature of the Chris Christensen brushes is that they are all made with tapered and polished pins. Many pin brushes, especially the cheaper ones, are made by simply chopping off the pins and pushing them through the pad. The bottoms are then hammered flat. This leaves the tips of the pins rough and abrasive to the hair cuticle. When the hair cuticle is chipped and torn, it is more likely to snag with its neighboring hairs and create tangles and mats. As we tug and break apart mats, we create broken hairs with split ends that magnify the problem. Roughly broken hairs deep withing a coat will wreak havoc.

Hair damage is almost impossible to see with the naked eye. Here is a picture of broken hair, highly magnified. Yuk! It's easy to understand how hairs in this state would snag and tangle.

The tapered and polished tips of the Chris Christensen pin brushes are unlikely to cause this kind of breakage. They will not chip and tear at the hair cuticle. My personal favorite is the 16mm T-brush. The 16 mm pins remain fairly stiff so the tines will actually penetrate coat, not just skim over the top. It acts somewhat like a combination of brushing and combing. The brush comes in two sizes, the original larger size (it was intended for larger breeds with plush coats), and the new mini size. Chris Christensen manufactured this smaller design on our recommendation. We found that the 16mm T-brush was a perfect tool for Bichon Frise coat maintainence, but was a little large for some users. So here it is!

The mini T-brush, on the left above, is 4.25" wide compared to 5.25" of the original. The length is also shorter by an inch, 6" compared to 7". This translates into about 3/4 of an ounce less weight, always appreciated by the older groomer. (smile, if you have arthritis in your hands). The smaller size is easier to manueuver around smaller dogs, such as Maltese, Bichon Frise, Yorkies, and small Poodles.

PIN BRUSHES VS. SLICKER BRUSHES
I know you are burning to ask which is better, pin brushes or slickers? Dog show people use more pin brushes, professional groomers love slickers. In terms of preventing coat damage, pin brushes with polished pins are less likely to chip and tear the hair cuticle. The tiny tines of slicker brushes are more likely to cause wear and tear to the hair cuticle. Damage from either type of tool can be minimized, however, by adequate conditioning of the hair before assault by tools. Well-made slickers are less aggressive than cheap alternatives. If the brush scratches your skin, it will be brutal to fine hair.

It is hard for groomers to give up slickers. We get the results we want quickly. Slickers remove loose hair easily, and stretch hair for a beautiful fluff dry finish. Good news, groomers: It's not necessary to toss your slickers, just use them judiciously, not automatically. Try to incorporate more hair friendly tools to the largest possible extent. Personally, I have found that the more I use my CC 16mm T-brushes, the more I love them. I especially appreciate the less matting and tangling in the Bichon coats. When I do use slickers, I use really good brushes, such as Chris Christensen, Les Pooch.

Here is a summary of my reasons for choosing Chris Christensen brushes:

• Tapered and polished tines are least likely to damage hair cuticle.
• T-Brush design is easy on user wrists.
• German workmanship and design manufactures tools that last.
• Quality materials are durable and nice to use. (Great wood!)
• 16 mm brushes act as comb and brush, penetrating thick plush coats, including Bichon Frise, but also great on Bearded Collie.
• Dogs like the less tugging and resistance of the brushes.
• Dog friendly, user friendly, hair friendly - what more can you ask of a brush?

Chris Christensen 16mm T Brushes in both sizes may be purchased from yours truly. Click HERE to Shop With a Groomer. They can also be purchased at Cherrybrook.com