GOLDEN RETRIEVER SUMMER CUT

Here is Chloe, a golden retriever with a very thick, long and curly coat. Her owner wanted her "more comfortable" for summer. Translation: "Make her easier to care for." I am a groomer who hates to shave undercoated coats. My reasons are:

1. The dog needs the insulation of the coat. The hair serves to dissipate the heat from the heat source to the skin. Would you rather live in an adobe brick home or a tin home?
   
2. Shaving the coat sometimes ruins it. It almost always is altered in some way, especially the ratio of guard hairs to fine hairs. Regrowth is often fuzzier, more wirey, or patchy and downright ugly.
3. Once-a-year shave down is how you would care for a farm animal. It is not a good practice for caring for a family pet.

As an alternative to a complete clipping, I have developed this option, which I call "summerizing".

This was accomplished by first bathing and conditioning the coat. Conditioning is vital when you are going to remove dead undergrowth, a process referred to by some professional groomers as "carding" the coat.

Since Chloe has a tendency to allergy problems, we used only hypoallergenic products on her. The conditioner was two ounces of Cure Care Conditioner from Sally's Beauty Supply, a fragrance-free, colorant-free conditioner that I have found works well on allergic dogs, mixed with one ounce of Chris Christensen Ice on Ice. With about 1.5 gallons of water in the tub, the solution was rinsed through the coat with the Bathing Beauty bathing system.

The dog is a big hyper on the table with the HV dryer, so we allowed her to comfortably dry in the exercise pen on towels and the Sahara ambient air dryer plus a big fan. After about 45 minutes, she was put on the table and the K-9II dryer finished the job in less than 10 minutes.

The coat was thoroughly deshedded with a curved slicker, a big coarse comb and the furminator. Then the furnishings were trimmed using a #5/8 Wahl metal snap-on comb on the vacuum clipper system. The side coat was blended into the short bottom by skimming with the clippers, and I skimmed in a few other areas where there were wayward whispies. The rear end required some #7F blade work from the inside of the back legs outward, where she was seriously matted.

Total table time was about 40 minutes. I charged $60.00 and the owner was very happy.
Chloe looks happy, too!

"Oh good", she says, "I've been SUMMERIZED!"

A further note:
The Bathing Beauty recirculating bathing system is absolutely essential to the results I get in these large dog baths. (Actually it is vital to all of my bathing.) It allows me to work products through these dense coats with a minimum amount of time & effort and obtain the maximum effect. It also eliminates much of the dreaded rinsing time that is often a part of bathing big thick coated animals. The Bathing Beauty system is available from the BBird.biz Shopping Cart at the best price available anywhere.