hand stripping, some detailed feedback please?

[azurwolf]

OK, i have been plucking away at my 6 mo cairn since she was a puppy, all her fluffy puppy hair was off her by 4 mo, and since then i have done very little, but now at 6 mo she has a thick band of wirey hair growing down her spine, maybe about 4 inches across her back and up into the rough round the back of her neck... her sides, legs and tummy have still got a softer coat that gets easily matted and which picks up every seed head and burr in the forest when i walk her....and her face remains the same as always, a different sort of hair again, softer and less fluffy...but which also picks up seeds and burrs...

OK, so recently i have noticed that when i have my habitual "pluck" at her, loads of hair comes out... so off i went enthusiastically plucking away... it comes out mostly of the region where the wirey hair has been growing... it is now about two inches long with the normal fluff undercoat, but it is the long hairs that are coming out... but i feel like maybe i am overdoing it??? my question is really for some specific details here

first, i live in france and the language barrier makes it difficult to ask local groomers.. second i don't want her trimmed, i want to strip her myself a little by little to keep her coat kind of shaggy and natural looking but also not too heavy, so i don't think local french poodle parlors would be much use here

second, this is my first cairn and believe me I have seven books already, i have read every article i can find; i have looked at pictures, but most just show happy cairns on grooming tables with smiling owners and the detail is lost... I am crawling round the terrace on my hands and knees trying to keep a cairn still while trying to pluck out her hairs, and she sometimes sits really well, other times she tries to use her mouth to stop me.. not biting but you understand, just saying "oi!".. and then of course she is always jumping trying to eat the fluff coming off her as it blows across the terrace... they don't show pictures of that in cairn grooming books!!!

I brush her twice a week, and usually get about a handful of soft undercoat fluff left in the brush, and i "pluck" her at the same time looking for loose hairs... but the quantity of loose hair is alarming just now.. i am wondering when to stop or i will end up with a bald dog.. I start plucking and in my fingers at each gentle tug i get like 10 hairs, i move up her coat a smidgen and tug again; and another ten hairs come out... well, this is going to take weeks i guess but i wasn't expecting so much to come out!!!

so, do any of you have detailed pictures you can post here showing me how you pluck? ie your fingers actually plucking, the amount of hair that comes out with each tug, and maybe before and after pictures to let me see what effect i am going for...

not many Cairns here where i live and those i do meet look like they have never been groomed and are like scraggy sheep, or the other extreme have been clipped and look more like skinny Norwich terriers or even worse like a bad imitation of a westie...

so, any advice please, but really it is the details i am interested in, the technique of plucking the hair, and the "when to stop" guidelines, or at least when to know enough is enough

thanks in advance

az xxx

[sanford]

I wish I could answer all your (very appropriate) questions, but I've encountered many of the problems you describe. I also never found it easy to do. For me, it's a messy job, especially in an apartment, where the hair manages to get onto me & other things. He always manages to shake himself out repeatedly and sends the fur flying! I even have a grooming table and arm with a loop, but my cairn is world-class contortionist so I end up chasing him around the (small) table! I envy the contributors on this site whose dogs cooperate and who seem to have a knack that I lack. I've even read that some people are able to pluck the hairs as their dogs lie peacefully alongside them on the sofa while they watch TV...What must their sofas look like? Give me a break!

[Shazza]

Here are a few pictures I took while pulling some hairs out of our female. They were taken with my cell phone so they probably aren't the best quality.

I normally use a stripping knife when I groom ours, it makes it much easier for me. I don't have the patience to sit and do this. I only do this when we are sitting out back relaxing.

Coarse outer coat but you can see the undercoat as well when I pull it up.

Hairs that came out while pulling in above picture.

[Idaho Cairns]

I always want to ask the question "Why bother?" when the question of hand stripping Cairns comes up. A bit of an affectation on the part of owners for the most part. Do we believe that Scottish farmers sat around their barns and hand stripped the little dogs they used to hunt vermin?

I find a good brushing and some judicial trimming here and there retains the appropriate "little rough terrier" look that Cairns should display.

Not sure where the hand stripping thing came from (show people?) but considering the amount of concern and confusion the topic causes here the reasons for doing it seem more important to me than the method.

[bradl]

Skin health (first) and appearance (secondarily) are my reasons.

In terms of skin health, it may be one of those things where it's not a problem unless it's a problem. If your dog is clipped or carrying heaps of dead coat and has no issues: congratulations. If your dog is suffering from skin-related conditions (smell, itching, etc.) and you are not stripping - your dog may benefit. She hasn't come around in a while, but Chris's Desta is an example of a dog who's skin health improved with some stripping.

[azurwolf]

thanks for all your replies and for the excellent photos, i now know i am doing the stripping the right way, i guess the amount of hair coming out just now must be to do with her age or that we are in mid summer

my reason for stripping her is that I live in the south of France where summer temperatures hover round 30

[hallswel]

I think it is wonderful you are stripping your baby. Rebel is my big boy, he is a pet and for no other reason than it is good for his skin and I like the way he looks I have always stripped him at least once a year. The other times I use the mars rake to keep him neat looking but I didn't start with the mars until he was over a year old.

[Chez]

Hi my boy has been losing lots of hair recently too, I'd put it down to him being on a diet but maybe it's a weather thing.

[Nena]

Mine is 2 and I hand strip with pumice stone. Don't just pull on the hair without supporting the skin with your other hand. 5 or 10 minutes a week is all I do. You will get hair out everytime but only the dead hair will come out so don't worry about over doing. They stay cleaner and don't develope allergies so that is why I do it. And she looks so much better maintaining grooming.

I use to stress over this too but after awhile you will get use to it and it will be no big deal. Mine does not sit quietly while I do stripping, but I do it anyway a few minutes at a time it managable. I let my husband hold her while I do her butt and I do trim that after stripping to keep her cleaner. Hope this helps. I just started using the pumice stone and it gets so much more hair out faster. It works great.

Happy stripping

[sanford]

"Why bother?" A bit of an affectation on the part of owners for the most part. Do we believe that Scottish farmers sat around their barns and hand stripped the little dogs they used to hunt vermin?

As has often been mentioned here, cairns are stripped for the health of their coat & skin and as long as their will be new cairn owners, the topic of stripping will probably never go away. This may be considered an affectation to some, but on the scale of dog grooming, well-groomed cairns probably look less "affected" than many other more manicured breeds.

I think that the consensus on this site has been, these are our pets and there does not have to be one "right" way for them to look... stripped or clippered. Most of us like the way our cairns look after they've been properly groomed/stripped. But some owners like the completely full grown-out shaggy coated Yak look and that can be OK too. These are our pets and we enjoy having them look whatever way we feel comfortable with.

I've read that the underbrush, brambles and thorns that grew around the rocks where the cairns originally hunted, would naturally strip the blown, dying hair from their coats. So the Scottish farmers didn't have to sit around in their barns 100 years ago stripping their little dogs.