Grooming your long coat dog is different from grooming a short or medium coat dog. It is important that you know how to properly groom your dog so that you enhance his natural look. There are a few things you need to keep in mind while grooming your dog.
If you are not comfortable grooming your dog at home, there is always the option of taking him to a professional. You may even want to go with to the grooming session to watch and see how they do it. After watching, you may feel confident enough to try it yourself next time. Another good idea is to get a picture of a professionally groomed dog to use as a reference. You can look at the picture while grooming your own dog, so that you have an idea of what look you are going for.
Bathing your dog is the first thing that needs to be done. Working with a clean dog is very beneficial. After the dog is bathed, he needs to be completely dry before attempting to cut or trim the hair. To dry the hair, use the pin brush and a blow dryer. Make sure the blow dryer has a low heat setting. A setting that is too hot will burn the dogs skin.
When drying the hair, start at the bottom and back of the dog and work upward and forward. Holding the hair outward from the body in addition to moving upward and forward when drying the dog will fluff the hair instead of making it lay flat. Remember to dry small sections at a time and keep the blow drying moving, so that it does not get too hot for the dog. Make sure that one section of hair is completely dry before moving onto the next section.
Preventing tangles is also important. Make sure you are combing the hair as you dry to keep the hair fluffy, full, and free of tangles. When the drying is finished, run the brush through the hair one last time to insure there are no tangles.
Now you are ready to begin the trimming part of the grooming. Get a #10 blade on your clippers and carefully shave the dogs anal area making sure not to touch the blade to the skin. Keeping the hair in this area is important to the dogs hygiene. If you prefer not to use the clippers, you can use scissors to trim this hair.
Some owners choose to trim their dogs underbelly as well. To do this, use the same blade as before and trim from the groin to the naval and also the inside of the thighs. Do make sure you are shaving with the hair to get a much nicer looking cut.
The feet are another important area that needs some attention. The hair between the pads of the paw need to be trimmed to prevent matting. Make sure to cut parallel with the paws as well, as you want them to look neat and even.
Now you will want to stand back and look at your dog and see if there are any stray or long hairs that need to be trimmed. You want your dog to have to blend well, so only cut a few hairs at a time, then step back and look again. This will prevent you from cutting too much hair.
To finish up use a conditioning spray to keep the coat looking great. Spray evenly over the coat, and follow up with a brush to fluff the coat, and set it.
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