I am a fairly new cairn owner. Actually, she is my daughter's cairn. It's my grandog My daughter is 19 and still lives at home and is going to school. So, I am left in charge of "the cairn". She will probably leave home with my daughter when she eventually leaves and will probably break my heart as this little dog has stolen my heart! The cairn's name is Charli. We got her from my best friend who has just two cairns and this was the last of a couple litters they had together. She has been a joy as a puppy! House training has been a breeze, but we also have 4 other dogs to help show her the ropes so I think that helped a lot. Cairns are very smart!

This is my first real experience with real grooming of a dog. We had a golden retriever when the kids were little and that's the closest I've come to grooming. We currently have 3 rat terriers of which there is no grooming. I don't think I've even ran a brush over them. I can bathe all three of them and do nails in under 30 minutes. They are dry in about 2 minutes! The other dog is a large short hair mutt. So all this hair is new to me!

So far what I have done was to start a brushing session once a week when she was a pup. She does fairly well with this. She does not like the slicker brush very well. I have a rake type stripper that has roughly 6-8 blades. She doesn't mind this. Will it hurt to use this on her once a week or will it over strip her? Or, should I just use a bristle brush on her once a week? I am not planning on taking her to a groomer as long as she will let me do this.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

Melanie

I've added a picture of her in the attachment

what a sweetheart! welcome! as far as grooming there are alot of different ways people groom their cairn . you would be better off checking the threads-type in search section at the bottom of the page for grooming and then also try hand stipping. one of the cairn owners here was kind enough to demonstate with pictures -she hand strips. everything you need to know will be posted on those two threads-good luck!

Thanks! I'll look in grooming

"CAIRNGRATULATIONS!!" on adding a Cairn to your pack. Did your friend mention hand-stripping to you? It is probably the best method of grooming Cairns, but not everyone does it, as it can seem pretty daunting at first. After your experience with your easy to care for ratties, stripping will no doubt seem like a crazy idea! If you go to this site: croftersdream.com, and click on "Cairn Terrier Grooming" , you'll get lots of grooming info. Good luck with Charli, she's beautiful.

Jim

Charli is adorable!! I'm with Jim...handstripping is the way to go. I do use a stripping knife and shears as well but will handstrip most of his back and sides. I was fortunate to have a breeder give me a private lesson on grooming which really got me started then did a lot of research on this forum. I'm still learning too.