Do you groom your own pets?

[fidgiegirl]

I think it is cdttmm that has mentioned that she learned to groom her dogs in 4H growing up (if not, please correct me and let me know who it was!). I have been intrigued by that ever since it was posted. Now that we have little Gusser, a Havanese/Shih Tzu who needs grooming, I would like to try to learn how. Interestingly, there are few tutorials on YouTube or around the web aside from how to trim around the eyes (helpful, but there is more to him than just eyes). I have a good scissors as well as a dog clipper that I picked up at a garage sale for $5.

Any tips or ideas for how to learn this skill?

I am already comfortable with nail trimming, bathing, cleaning ears. It is the clipping I would like to learn.

[treehugger]

Yes, I do. Except, greyhounds pretty much groom themselves. :)

To be more helpful, check out this site: http://diydoggrooming.com/

Kara

[fidgiegirl]

This is just the kind of thing I was looking for! Thank you, Kara!

Other resources welcome . . . Gus needs a clip pretty soon here.

[redfox]

Yup. One of my cats allows me to clip on nail per day, if I am lucky. I do need to get them in for a dental cleaning, which is 300+ per cat. Yoikes.

[treehugger]

Yup. One of my cats allows me to clip on nail per day, if I am lucky.

Valium is the answer. Ophelia has always needed valium to let us cut her nails and to take her to the vet. She's 18 now, and weaker than she used to be, so my husband and I can now do her nails without valium (usually, but it's still a 2-person job), but she still gets mighty cranky (violent, even) at the vet. Drugs are in everyone's best interest. :)

Kara

[mschrisgo2]

Check some of the breed/breeder sites, you'll probably find details.

[fidgiegirl]

Pretty pumped about this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv30R0fU5kk

[Kestra]

I groomed my own poodles and Shih Tzu, but this was after a lot of prior work experience, though vet type stuff - surgical prep generally, with some cat shave downs, not so much grooming clipping. I bought expensive clippers, as they pay for themselves quickly. Also important to have multiple blades so you can swap them as they heat up. I prefer a 10 blade, though groomers often use a 4 or 5, I believe. 40 is a surgical level blade, so I would also use those occasionally. There are particular body areas that are trickier - any place where the skin is kind of loose and harder to pull flat. What you want to avoid is having skin go between the points on the blade. Picture clipping your dog's ear and running the blade perpendicular to the ear edge - imagine how the ear could go between the blade combs. That is what you want to avoid. So for ears, you always have the blade flat against the ear. Other bad areas are elbows, the skin where the thigh meets the belly and the prepuce for a boy. Don't go for prettiness - it'll never look as good as a semi-experienced groomer could do, but you can definitely do a good enough job just to keep them clean. And you'll save tons of money.

Since I was doing it at home, I'd do a bit at a time over a few days as patience can be difficult for dog and groomer.

I'm sure there's tons of internet stuff to look at, but if you have specific questions I might be able to answer, let me know.

[fidgiegirl]

I groomed my own poodles and Shih Tzu, but this was after a lot of prior work experience, though vet type stuff - surgical prep generally, with some cat shave downs, not so much grooming clipping. I bought expensive clippers, as they pay for themselves quickly. Also important to have multiple blades so you can swap them as they heat up. I prefer a 10 blade, though groomers often use a 4 or 5, I believe. 40 is a surgical level blade, so I would also use those occasionally. There are particular body areas that are trickier - any place where the skin is kind of loose and harder to pull flat. What you want to avoid is having skin go between the points on the blade. Picture clipping your dog's ear and running the blade perpendicular to the ear edge - imagine how the ear could go between the blade combs. That is what you want to avoid. So for ears, you always have the blade flat against the ear. Other bad areas are elbows, the skin where the thigh meets the belly and the prepuce for a boy. Don't go for prettiness - it'll never look as good as a semi-experienced groomer could do, but you can definitely do a good enough job just to keep them clean. And you'll save tons of money.

Since I was doing it at home, I'd do a bit at a time over a few days as patience can be difficult for dog and groomer.

I'm sure there's tons of internet stuff to look at, but if you have specific questions I might be able to answer, let me know.

I wouldn't have thought of the ear thing. And another video or something I found said the same suggestion of doing a little bit at a time. I'm pretty excited. I might get a thinning scissors as well as not too much of Gus will be shaved - belly and back legs, yes, but he's a long-haired boy so we will keep him long, I think.

I'll have to get out that kit and check out the blades. Maybe even at $5 it wasn't worth it if it isn't the right thing.

[Selah]

I clip our cats' nails weekly (very weakly, ba-da-bump!) and brush them a few times a week. I'd like to learn how to brush their teeth, so I'm getting them used to me giving them gum massages (!). I'd love to learn how to groom pets--particularly cats--professionally. There's good money to be made and it sounds like a really fun job. The only place I can find that gives really intensive courses on teaching people how to groom cats are in America, though. It might be a fun study/vacation to do someday!

[goldensmom]

I groom my dogs who will let me do anything to them. My big boy Siamese used to run and hide when he saw me get my green flannel bath shirt on.

[jp1]

We clip both cats' nails and brush their teeth. One is fine with it. The other has a fit every time. As a result one doesn't get his teeth done very often. Last time they went for a checkup one needed a teeth cleaning (and six pulled teeth). I remind him of this every time he fusses but that doesnt matter to him...

[boss mare]

In having show horses I do clip alot The clippers are worth spending some good money on.. as is blades There is the magnetic driven, rotory motor and cable drive motor the magnetic ones are not worth bothering with nor are the adjustable blades. The one that I use 99.9% of the time is the Double K cable drive For last minute touch up at a shows I have the Oster Turbo 2 speed. Getting clipers with the A-2 blades are the best as they are interchangeable with many different brands I Double K would probably be over kill in your case but the Oster Turbo or brans of that same power would be more what you are looking for The higher the blade number the closer the shave a 50 or 40 blade is a very very close cut ( surgical) a 5 I use with my horses depending on if it is summer or winter and different parts if the body 50, 40, 30 , 15 and 10 with 10 getting the most use I know that there are over blades like skipe tooth but I don't have any experience with speciality blades Like someone posted up thread... Have several on hand as the do heat up and use clipper oil

[Wildflower]

DH and I together keep our 3 dogs groomed, as in bathing, brushing, ear cleaning, and nail clipping, but there is no clipping or trimming required on these short haired breeds. We used to have Shelties, now long since passed, whom were very long haired that we tried to groom, but we just could not get the clipping done correctly, so gave up and took them to a groomer on a regular basis. It was worth the money to us and they came home looking beautiful everytime....we miss our girls.

[lmerullo]

I groom my two and think it can easily be a DIY project. Of course it all depends on the breed, the style of grooming and the individual dog.

Our mini schnauzer is so easy. Hubby says we plop her down like a pizza dough belly up and she just lays there. Roll her around as needed and she loves it.

The other dog tolerates grooming - likely because resistance is futile. He hates leg or foot grooming so that's a continual tug of war. We do him in stages over a few days but ultimately he is passable. Since he is a malting -poo we can do several hairstyles but mostly go with short legs and body with long ears, tail and top of head. When we trim ears and head short he is comical looking.

I say give it a try. If we hadn't had success with our girl, though, we would not have tried with the other - it takes patience and training to achieve on some dogs.

[frugalone]

We have a rabbit and we do cut his nails ourselves (it is upsetting to him).
Just bought a Furminator on sale and cannot say enough good stuff about it! It makes grooming very easy!

[Tussiemussies]

I hroom my fog but she is short-haired. We had Bichons a long time ago and I used to cut their hai. I had two sets of professional scissors and one set of rounded edge scissors to use around their eyes which I cut quite frequently since they would get brown under their eye from normal eye fluid.

My suggestion would be. -- the next time you have your dog groomed, look carefully at how the sides, feet and face, and ears are done. Also see of there is hair on the bottom of his feet. I used to trim that with the rounded scissors.

I bought my scissors from Cherrybrook in NJ a professional supply store. If they are on the web I will post their URL.

They are on the internet:

www.cherrybrook.com

[fidgiegirl]

Tussies, I have seen those rounded end scissors and I believe I will need to get a pair. I have a good pair already but it's pointy. He's been good when DH and I have tackled the eye area, but I almost poked him last time, and that makes me just a little nervous.

[Tussiemussies]

Hi Kelli, they really are a big help and I used to trim my dogs eyes and nose a lot to give a cleaned up face.
Good luck and let know how it works out!

Christine

[fidgiegirl]

Report!

We just finished grooming Gus. He was a good boy on the table, and I still feel like I just ran a 5K! I was so nervous - spent all day doing things like finishing making the grooming arm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv30R0fU5kk&feature=share&list=PLWHrxXwNvd9zWq_QW78hFyaW8blDhNZ7c), watching a number of YouTube videos to feel more confident (finally decided on several of these (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtaOh2nVySg&feature=BFa&list=PLWHrxXwNvd9zWq_QW78hFyaW8blDhNZ7c) as most helpful), assembling a grooming kit with items from the attic, geez - talk about procrastination! Finally I bathed Gus in the washtub and let him dry for a few hours. I think salons blow dry them but I wasn't ready to fuss with that.

He didn't come out professional, but not bad for a first attempt. Once we all become more comfortable handling and being handled for grooming, it will go more smoothly. Plus, in summer I'll be willing to cut him shorter, so it will be easier to see the contours of the body, etc. I didn't want him to be too cold right now, and heck, if we're going to do it ourselves, we can clip him as often as we want.

The best tool was the thinning shears, bought on a whim today when I went for the blunt face scissors Tussies had mentioned. I used those and the thinning shears, a metal comb and the clippers. Prior to clipping I brushed and combed him out.

I'm not sure the clippers are sharp. I might have to have them sharpened, or replace them. For $5 at a garage sale, they are an ok starter pair, but I think they're kind of cheap. Of course, it could have just been the volume of hair on him too. I wanted to cut him long, and luckily the long combs from DH's clipper fit on this clipper, and DH never wears his hair that long, so he was ok with me stealing them for the dog.

Still need to scissor his feet and clean his ears and do his nails. He is not a fan of having his feet touched.

Cost for supplies:
Blunt scissors $17.99
Thinning shears $14.99
Slicker brush $11.99
Metal comb $7.99 (plastic would have worked but this is nice)
Clippers $5.00
Supplies for grooming arm $11.00
=approx $70.

At the third time we clip we'll be money ahead.

The reveal!

Before:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8479/8240119320_be67564d08.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7733846@N05/8240119320/)
Untitled (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7733846@N05/8240119320/) by fidgiegirl (http://www.flickr.com/people/7733846@N05/), on Flickr

After:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8199/8239054107_1c55b3b599.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7733846@N05/8239054107/)
Untitled (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7733846@N05/8239054107/) by fidgiegirl (http://www.flickr.com/people/7733846@N05/), on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8340/8240121562_2934d985b3.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7733846@N05/8240121562/)
Untitled (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7733846@N05/8240121562/) by fidgiegirl (http://www.flickr.com/people/7733846@N05/), on Flickr

[Tussiemussies]

Oh he looks so great! So nice, neat and clean. Great job for your first time.