Having Fun With Mixed Breeds Grooming

Creating an individual style or "look" for a pet can be rewarding and fun. At Transformation Pet Center, Tucson, Arizona, we recently had this little guy as our last groom of 2010. Can you guess the breeds? Poppy is a Pomeranian/Poodle mix. That's a lot of P's! He is one year old and had never been groomed.

As is often the case, his owners rather underestimated the degree of disrepair. "He has a few tangles", they said when booking the appointment. What arrived was one totally matted furball. Not the worst we've seen, but seriously enough matted to require a clip down. Do pet owners lie about the condition of their fur babies? No. I'm convinced that they just don't see mats the way the professional does. Poppy was in bad shape, and I was not willing to torture the little guy for a major dematting, so I prepared them for short, short. Even his head was tangled, and the ears had large dreadlocks. How was I going to make him look cute?

I'm not overly fond of clipping down dogs. My approach in this type of situation is to find the longest blade that will go through a coat, rather than reaching for the #7 or #10 and doing a "smoothie". In this case, I was pleased to discover that the Andis 4 1/2 blade would plow through the coat, leaving a decent amount. The fact that we were in the middle of an ugly cold spell with more winter to go also figured into my decision.

Once the body and legs were clipped, I had to decide what to do with the head. As I clipped off the chunks of mats on the ears, I began to have a vision. Poppy had a rather full, puffy topknot and I was able to brush it out. I began to "see" a bit of the Dandie Dinmont Terrier head. I followed this vision, and tassled the ears. Then I used chunking shears and styling spray (Chris Christensen Thick N Thicker, my favorite) and I created a unique casual look for Poppy. Instead of making the crown of the head plush and perfect scissored, I scrunched it up and left it tousled. Do you like it? His young owners were delighted.

For me, having this extensive repetoire of visual images to draw from in creating custom looks for mixed breed dogs is part of being a Certified Master Groomer. Studying my breed profiles has translated in many ways into my daily grooming. No this is not a true Dandy Dinmont head, but the Dandy image in the back of my brain inspired me to "see" this possibility for Poppy.

It was great fun creating something unique and special for a dog that otherwise would have been a rather boring unimaginative clip down. The delighted smiles on the owners' faces was worth the little extra time and effort it took to be creative. And THEY WILL BE BACK! What a great way to end 2010!