Lamb cuts

I did a lamb cut today.

For some reason I don't do them very often. My salon is very particular about the way dogs are groomed.

Each time the dog is groomed, we write the exact blades, combs, etc we used for the groom from head to tail. If the sticky note says "like before" then we must do what was done before. I would like to leave legs a little longer on short trims so that the dog has fuller legs rather than little stick legs.

But anyways...

 

It's not that big of a difference, but you can tell by the way the coat on the legs looks thicker than the body.

This is done because the she has thin hair and the owner doesn't like the stick leg look.

 

This is her sweet face. She was wonderful for her groom.

Sorry for blurry pics again.

I will try to be better. :)

Bathing your dog

Always some interesting people to meet when you're a groomer.

Today the owner (who also is the receptionist) came back to tell us all some delightful information. Earlier in the day we had talked about people that don't brush their dogs, and how people think their dogs don't need to be brushed, have dental cleanings, etc, because they "didn't in the wild." Obviously that's a conversation for another day.

But anywho...

A first time customer came to pick up her lab mix thing that came to us for a bath and nails. Before she left she was talking about her dog to the shop owner. As she walked out the door she commented that this dog was the first she had ever owned that "needed" a bath.

???

We all got a pretty good laugh out of it and pondered how many dogs she had owned and how smelly they all were. :(

So this brought me to my post about bathing your dog.

Your dog needs baths. In the 1600s or whatever time period you would like to think of when "dogs weren't bathed very often" you must also remember that PEOPLE did not bathe very often. No that does not mean that your dog needs a bath whenever you have one, but it is okay to do more often than you would think.

I once worked at a shop that would tell people that under NO circumstances should they wash their dog more than every 3 weeks because it would dry out the coat. This is incorrect.

 Show dogs are bathed A LOT, some even daily. They use mild shampoos and conditioner (very important). When you use shampoo on your dog, you strip the natural oils from the coat. This is not bad as they DO come back. Depending on the dog (because of oily coat, dry, quality of food), the time it takes to replenish the oils varies from several days to several weeks. To help put the oils back into the coat, conditioner is used. This, among other things, is how show dogs maintain amazing coats.

Hooray important things are done.

On another note, I bathed a friends dog today at her house. It was the first time I've ever done an in-home grooming. We had no table or restraint system. Just a dining room floor and my friend holding her dog. It was interesting considering Sampson is quite particular about what he will let you do without a fight.

I took a few pictures but he was clean and pretty and prancing around and wouldn't be still. This is the best I could get. :)

I know-it's super blurry. But he has such a sweet face. :D

Getting into blogging

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately and have catched the blogging bug. I doubt anyone will follow, but if you do, I hope this will be enlighting for you. I plan to mostly talk about grooming, but anything goes! Whatever is on my mind. And I'm long winded-so beware! Happy blogging!