[krandall]

He's adorable! ...And this is just a phase you need to live through if you want to be able to tie his hair up. If you intend to keep him in a short cut, you can always shorten his bangs with scissors. Just be careful if you don't know how to do this, because you don't want to take chances with pointy things around his eyes! It won't hurt him to wait two weeks for his grooming appointment!

 

[krandall]

Thank you! We're so in love with him!
Yes, I think waiting might be the best option here. He's a wiggly little guy and it's taken me weeks just to be able to comb him... with lots of bribery. lol. I don't have the confidence to trim it myself, just yet.
I hope he has a pleasant 1st time grooming experience. Makes me nervous to drop him off at a new place for a couple hours. We've been working hard the last few weeks to get him used to new surroundings, people and dogs. But it's been a slow process for him. Fingers crossed!

I never left my dogs with a groomer until my current groomer, who I know very well, and even with her, I stayed with them for the first couple of years to make sure they were comfortable before leaving them there once Covid started. This was prartially to make sure they were trimmed the way I wanted them, and partially because I’ve just heard too many stories about rough treatment. I know that there are many places that won’t allow this, but search around, and you can find them if it is important to you. It was to me!

 

[krandall]

I find it a bit unsettling too. I’ll have to seek one out… many didn’t allow it bc they said I’d be a distraction making it potentially dangerous…. which, for Pepper, I think would be true. It’s a hard call. In an ideal world, a one way mirror? In the meantime, my search is on!

You have complete control over this. When I first started taking them, I stayed COMPLETELY away from the table. I talked to the groomer, but not my dob, unless she asked me to. (Which was rare) if they started to act up at all, I didn’t even look at them, I quietly turned and walked out of the room. I stood out of sight until the groomer told me they were behaving again. It didn’t take more than a couple of times for them to learn that a ting up got them NO WHERE! Dogs misbehave if they think their owner will step in and “save” them.

 

[krandall]

Always try to do your best to comb out any mats so there are no surprises when picking up your puppy! Unfortunately I learned that one several times with our first Havanese. 😮

Yes!!! No groomer wants to hurt a dog by combing out lots mats. If you have one or two SMALL mats and warn the groomer ahead of time, sometimes they will agree to comb those out for you. But if there is any general matting they are GOING TO SHAVE the dog to the skin, and it is the right thing to do. It might be a shock, but hair grows. It gives you a chance to start fresh and learn to groom your dog properly and prevent mats the next time around! If you need help learning, that is the time to ask the groomer to teach you. Any good groomer will be HAPPY to teach you at-home maintenance for in between grooming appointments!

 

[krandall]

Our home groomer did not want me close to the grooming table. I would talk to the groomer, but not to Scout or Truffles. She wanted them to learn good table manners because she was using sharp instruments. Now they have perfect table manners. 😄

Yes! They should not be paying attention to you when they are on the table. They need to be paying attention to the groomer!

 

[krandall]

I like to use the flobee on my dog. No worry about sharp edges close to the eyes. Also makes the process much faster which is useful.

I think that using a flowbee on a puppy's head would be very scary. I'd be VERY careful with that!!!

 

[krandall]

The scary part for the dog is the noise, but given they are so squirmy and impatient, it is important to be able to finish quickly and remove risk of sharp edges near the face. The device has long and short shields. I like that the cut is perfectly even and that I can have a cut semi-long. The professional groomers would only cut with clippers which is too short for my taste.

I don't know ANY groomer that cuts the face with clippers! And squirminess is a matter of training...

 

[krandall]

Ducky gets "table work" every night along with his dinner. For him, it is for the conformation ring, but you could just as easily do it for grooming. We put his dinner up on the grooming table, and ask him, "Do you want to get on the table?" Of COURSE he does!!! Then the whole time he is eating, either Dave or I goes over his entire body, touching every inch of him, (yes, even the family jewels!) moving his feet into various positions, etc. If he were a puppy who tended to drop his tail (he's not) we would remind him to keep it up. We ARE working on trying to get his tail to stay on the "show" side of his body... Not sure how well this will work, but we are trying. I'm also not sure it makes a huge difference in his case, since it is white on white. If he had a white tail coming down across a black flank, it would make more of a "statement". If we happen to have someone over, (not frequently, I HATE you Covid!!!) we instruct them in EXACTLY what we want them to do, and have them do the same thing. We also practice "showing the bite", but of course I do NOT pull him away from his dinner for that! And, if it's someone I trust to know how to do it CORRECTLY, I do have other people do that every now and then. While judges are not SUPPOSED to do this anymore, some still do, and I want him to accept another person doing it without fear.

If this were for grooming rather than conformation work, I would do it using a comb rather than just my hands. If my dog were going to be clipped, I would eventually move on to running clippers near him, then running the clippers and touching the vibrating body of the clipper to him while he was eating. (not really clipping, just letting him hear the noise and feel the vibration)