WET CLIPPING TO SAVE LENGTH

So you've got a dog on the table that the owner wants fluffy, but it's too matted to brush/comb out. You look at the fur and think "This is going to have to be a #7 blade. Decidedly NOT fluffy". Is there anything you can do to create a result closer to what the owner has in mind without a lot of extra work? Yes.

WET CLIPPING SAVES THE DAY! Well, it saves the customer relationship and it saves the groomer the grief of combing out the impossible. It will not leave the coat full, but it will leave the coat fluffy.

Meet Angel. Sidebar: Groomers, have you EVER met a dog named "Angel" that WAS? This one is no exception. She is not "Cujo", but she is not exactly tolerant of her grooming either. Plus she has TWO (count 'em) blown patellas so that struggling that she does can be extremely dangerous. She was last groomed on 11/20/04. It is now 2/8/05. Too long, too long. And the owner admits that she bathed her and did not comb out.

Oh, and did I mention that she is exceedingly timid? Great. To summarize, we have a matted toy poodle, intolerant of grooming, very luxating patella in the both rear legs that could blow out with struggling, and she's timid and interprets the whole grooming process as torture. Owner wants a short, fluffy, lamb cut.

Here is a close up of the fur. Experienced groomers might be able to see how bad it was. The rest will have to take our word for it. It was bad.


Let's get clear. I didn't owe this owner anything. I could easily justify a very short clip and actually prepared the client for that possibility. But I wanted to share with YOU the option of wet clipping, and I like pleasing my clients as much as possible and am known as the groomer who leaves length, so here we go. I decided to clip the dog while wet and see if I could leave her fluffy like the owner loves.

I first bathed the dog and conditioned with Chris Christensen After Bath. I started out with a #4F blade, but could not force it through the matting on the back of the neck, so I moved down to the #5F blade. That worked for the rest of the groom. Here is a picture of the beginning of the clipping. You can see how a whole area is being peeled with the #5 blade. On a dry coat I would surely have had to use a #7 blade and more likely a #10 to get through this pelting.




I use an Andis Super Two Speed clipper for this kind of work. It takes power to push through the worst of the matting, but in some less tangled areas, it clips like buttah. I also plug my clippers into a GFCI box for protection in using electricity around water. Don't wet clip without it.

ANGEL AFTER CLIPPING:


Then it was on to the fluff drying.. After fluff drying, you can see how the length is uneven. This is characteristic of wet clipping. When you use a wide blade on a wet coat, it will slide over some of the coat.

ANGEL AFTER FLUFF DRYING:


There was enough length left on the legs that I could easily have finished them with a #3 3/4 blade. However, given the owner's tendency to go to long between groomings, I decided to go with the #4 blade and hope she would maintain it better. It took about 2 minutes to go back over the body and legs. Then she got her poodle face and feet, and VOILA!

POODLE AFTER WET CLIPPING GROOM


The customer was happy and didn't even blink at the extra charge. I got $50 for the groom (my usual price for a #4 lamb is $40) and she promised to be back sooner. Yea right, we'll see. Except for around the neck and shoulders, it was a rather easy groom on the dog and for me. I spent about 1.5 hours on the groom. I consider it a win-win!

Equipment used:
Andis Super 2 Speed clippers
#5F blade on body & legs
#10 blade on tummy, and tail
#15 on face
Wahl Peanut clipper on feet
Arius Eickert 5.5" shears used on cuffs of legs.
Arius Eickert 6.5" shears used on top knot and tail.
Arius Eickert 8" straight shears used to even up legs.