HANDSTRIPPING THE PET AIREDALE

Cocoa is a 9-month old airedale that has not been groomed. She was obtained from a very reputable breeder and the owners were looking for a groomer that could handstrip. I was delighted to get the referral from a local trainer, as I enjoy grooming this breed and have not had the opportunity to start a puppy out with a hand strip. The owners were wanting to maintain the coat texture and color, but did not require that the head be stripped, and other areas could be scissor trimmed as necessary. So...I said..."Let's give it a try!" I prepared them for an $80 ticket and agreed to do as much as my hands and the puppy could comfortably tolerate. Here's Cocoa:

The owner wanted her tidied up but still puppyish, or a little scruffy. I always listen carefully to first time puppy owners, because often they are not quite ready to give up the puppy look for the adult look. This was the case for Cocoa. I "heard" that they knew she was due for a major grooming but they did not want to lose their puppy. That was rather good news for me, as it meant I did not need to strip down the whole body in one session. Good news for my hands!

The first thing that I absolutely had to tackle was the tail. Check this out:

That's not a tail, that's a bush! The tail is a good place to start. I used a McClelland medium stripping knife and my fingers with a latex glove. Five minutes later we had this:

Whew!

Then I spent some time shaping the rear and defining the rear angulation.


Many airedales have an area on the back leg that seems very sparse. Let me point that out to you:


You can see (I hope) that I've done some blending in that area so that it doesn't look bad. The Furminator tool was very helpful in working on the rear legs. Even with tools available, however, I do a LOT of my stripping with my fingers. Latex gloves turn my fingers into a stripping MACHINE!

Next, a little attention to the underline, enough to give some slant from rear to front and tidy up the tuck up (a little).


I worked on the topline and the jacket, vigorously removing about 1/3 of the coat. The way to avoid making sparse spots is to not stay focussed on one spot for too long. In this case, there was some brown growth coming in on top of the back, but if I had gone after that and removed it all, we would have had a very short, tight, jacket, which was not what the owners really wanted this time. I used the Furminator and the stripping knife. This 1/3 will grow in new, black hairs, and the brown stuff will be ripe for stripping next groom. It's important in hand stripping that both the owner and the groomer understand that each groom is a work in progress. You do not get the same consistent result every time like you can with clipper work. This is far more interesting...

The front and shoulders were very bushy:


I worked on that area for a few minutes, just trying to give a little better shape, but trying to stay consistent with the length I had created elsewhere.


Halfway there. It took about 35 minutes to get to this point. Check out the amount of hair that has been removed!


What's left now is the other side, bath & dry, and the head. I bathed in #1 All Systems Crisp Coat and allowed Cocoa to pen dry with the Sahara dryer. Since the owners wanted her to still be "fluffy" I didn't worry about the dryer opening up and lifting the coat. The head was clipped with a #5 blade, #10 on the ears. I chose the #5 blade because I did not want to make the head look too clipped for the body. Normally I would use a #7 or a #10. Here's the finished Cocoa:


The owner was thrilled. They did not balk about the $80 I charged, but the money is going to be a consideration. Although I suggested a 6 week rebooking, they are going to have to "see."
I can understand. That's a lot of $$. My regular, clipped, airedales are $65, which includes some carding to preserve color and texture. But it is not the same as this!

P.S. I thought this was going to be a hard groom because of such a large dog. It wasn't. My hands felt no more tired than when I do a Norwich. The coat was great and the dog was super duper... she never flinched even when I plucked her bottom. It's going to be great fun taking care of Cocoa the Airedale. Stay tuned!