ROUGH COATED COLLIE PET GROOM

It is a groomers dream: The owners bring in a gorgeous undercoated breed that has never been professionally groomed and after seeing your work they say, "I want him to be regularly groomed so that he never gets like that again. He should look like this!" And they start bringing the dog in on a regular basis. In our dreams, right? It happened to me. Here's Mickey:


This handsome collie boy comes for grooming every three weeks. It is so rewarding to be able to maintain Mickey. The down side to this blessing is that he comes so often because he is totally terrible about having his rear quarters groomed. He leaps around AND bites. Mickey is mouthy! His owners are willing to pay me Big Bucks to keep him brushed out and we have settled on the three week interval. Works for me! I've got the muzzle that is just his size, and I've got the LIPS restraint system. Without those pieces of equipment, I could not groom this guy. There's no way he can get done at home without serious drama that causes a strain to the relationship.

I'm sorry that I don't have a picture from Mickey's first visit. I did not even take a before shot yesterday prior to bathing. This is on the table before detailing. after the bath and brushout.

See how nicely that muzzle fits? When Mickey has his muzzle in place, he does not even turn his head around as IF to bite. He accepts that he is not going to bite me. He still dances around in a major sort of way, however. One more thing about the muzzling. One of my worst bites in my dog grooming career came at the mouth of an elderly collie. The dog "corn cobbed" me - several deep bites right up my forearm, wrist to elbow. Yeochh! The worst part was that I saw it coming. I asked my assistant to get the muzzle. "Oh, don't muzzle her, she's not going to bite you," said my barely experienced bather/helper. Less than a minute later I had four rapid fire puncture wounds. NEVER let someone, anyone, override your instincts! Your fear is there to protect you. Listen to your gut instincts when handling dogs. Muzzles are safety equipment, they are not cruel.

With Mickey's mouth safely ensconced in the muzzle, I am free to do the detailing. Here is what detailing entailed.
Scissoring: I use blenders, scissoring any excess hair on tops of feet (I clip the pads every few groomings), and trim the pasterns (back of front foot from foot to carpus and rear from hock to foot). I also trim out anything that sticks out from the inside of the rear legs at the front. Because we live in the Desert Southwest and it is very stickery, I trim these areas more tightly than you might see on the show Collie.

Hand stripping: This is basically fuzz removal. With a stripping knife, or my fingers, I pluck out the ugly fuzzy stuff that clutters the shoulder or rear leg. Having failed to do this the last time or two, we can see the fuzz on the bottom portion of the rear leg. This hair attracts debris and mats up between grooms.

Here it is after stripping:

It's just a matter of cleaning it up. I also pluck out the long stragglies around the ears.

Bulk thinning: Using my Synergy blenders as thinners, I thinned out the front leg furnishings at the elbow and down a few inches, so that the furnishings did not bulge from the side of the leg, for a somewhat cleaner look. By "bulk thinning" I mean reaching into the hair with the thinners, rather than blending from the outside. One or two cuts, then brush out what you have removed, and the feathering lays better.

What I was not able to do: I can barely brush out the rear end and do some deep combing. Forget detailing the pants. Any work from the flank back is a rodeo!

A final view of the finished product. Let's hear it for more of this kind of regular grooming and much less of the once a year shave down work. With Mickey coming in every three weeks, I can turn away 17 once-a-year dogs. Man, I love these people!

There is one more thing. The REASON this grooming relationship worked out so well was that I was willing to NOT SHAVE the dog the very first time. Mickey was four years old and had never been professionally groomed. He was a mess and he was uncooperative. I knew what was achievable with bathing, conditioning and dematting and was able to save the coat. If this dog had been clipped down, it would very likely have been another four years between professional groomings. In this case, the extra work to save the coat was worth it.