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Groom a Dog

Edited by Leomar Umpad, Dougie, Eng, Doug Collins and 2 others

3 Parts:

Steps

Video: Professional Dog Grooming Clipper Tips

Comments

Method 1: Professional Dog Grooming Clipper Tricks

One thing I want to show, when you are clipping dogs of any breed, is that if I am doing my clipper work, I always want to make sure that my opposite hand is on the dog's body. What I will do with my opposite hand is I will pull the skin tight. As I pull the skin tight, that gives me a smoother cutting surface.

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Steps

1
Because most of the dogs will have little lumps or little rolls in them, so if I pull the skin tight and I cut through with my snap-on comb, I'm going to get a lot smoother finish - that way you don't have to keep going over and over the dog
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2
Another added bonus with these snap-on combs is if you get a dog like this
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When you look at this up close, he's got a really thin coat. If you already use a four-blade, that is going to be a little bit shorter and you will make him a little bit too short where you will see a lot of skin. With these snap-on combs, I can make it look more like he has got a scissors-finish on him.

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3
I've got my body work done so I'm going to come down
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When I groom a dog inside, on the back leg, I'm going to pick up the opposite leg and also hold the tail on my hand - because that tail always seems to find a way over to where your blade is.
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4
So, I'm going to cut the inside of the leg and then you will get down to the spot where you can't get to the half and I will usually just use my hand and lift the dog's leg off the table just a little bit so I can get to the area
.

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5
The same thing as I'm cutting around this dog's foot
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I will just pick him up off the table just slightly so he's still on natural position. That will allow me to get all around this dog's foot and cut this in - nice and neat.
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6
I'll take the knee and give it just a little bit of a twist so it sticks out
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That way I can get in to this thing on and cut that a lot easier.

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7
These snap-on combs have saved us so much time in our shops because they do give a nice finish that you don't have to go over the dogs
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Most of my standard poodles used to take me close to 2 hours to completely hand-scissor the entire dog. I can use a snap-on comb, what I would call a lamb trim, on the body. You can even go to a longer snap-on comb and do a lot of skimming on the legs and then you just basically have to kind of touch up. You don't have to go over the work that you have already done.
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8
You'll notice that even in this area, this is a really sensitive area - it is really easy to cut, so I'll take the skin and I'll pull that tight
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That way I do not have any chance my blade catching the loose skin. That allows me to be able to clip this dog's hair without having the chance of knitting it or cutting it. These combs are also sold in single packages.

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9
Now, I'm going to check my work
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I'm going to lift him up still going in the same direction that we have all over the rest of the dog's body. Just make sure that from this angle when he stands up first thing you see when they like the grooming shop is they stand up and they want to flaunt their mama's sleeve or what-not at their pants legs so make sure all of these is cleaned.
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10
Now, we are going to move to the front leg
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This is a trim you should be able to do pretty quick with these tools that we are talking about today. Make sure when you are doing the legs, especially if you're going to do them really short, hold the leg out as if he were moving towards you. If he were running in motion just pull that legs straight out.
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11
When I get to the foot area, I want to make sure that I cut this so I will go up to his elbow and hold him by the elbow
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That way I can get all across the top of that foot. Make sure that you are really careful in this area. This is a really sensitive area and it's very easy to cut.
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12
The reason why you are hearing that little extra noise right there, especially going down with the dog that is doing a little bit of jerking and going down the bone area
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If the snap-on comb shifts a little bit and is not sitting squarely on the blade as it should, you will hear that noise. Actually it's like metal on metal because the snap-on comb is actually hitting the teeth of the blade so sometimes you just have to stop and re-adjust it a little bit. It happens more on the closer blades - very infrequently happens on the longer lengths. It's usually the four snap-on comb that it does happen with. All you have to do is to re-adjust it a little bit.
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13
I'm just going to switch to the other leg real quick
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You can see that I have not taken this blade off and clean out the hair in it. The hair, basically, just falls right out of this blade as you are using it so it does not get clogged up like a lot of the snap-on combs on the market. They are very easy to work with and it has saved me so much time as far as scissor-work is concerned. I do not have to do much scissor-work on my dogs at all now because I can use these snap-on combs - and basically just do the feet and the head.
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14
The snap-on comb start off pretty short
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The shortest one is the red one, it's 1/8 inch - which you can get a dog pretty short with that. It all goes all the way up to 1 inch - the E. We have the E, the C - the 7/8 of an inch, the A - 3/4 inch, then we have the Zero which is probably my most popular - it's the one that I happen to use a lot. I use this on standard poodle bodies. If I'm going to do a lamb trim, this is really a nice length especially if you have a dog who tend to be a little on the thinner side. This gives a really nice plush finish and this is a 5-inch set.
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15
Then we have the peach or salmon color, the one that I use the most is the peach, that's a half inch
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This is really good on a lot of your drop-coated breeds like the shih tzu, maltese, and a lot of the drop-coated breeds that get the pet trims. The number 1 is really nice maintenance trim it leaves a looking nice and plush at a nice length. The number 2 is a 3-inch set.
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