When stripping the head...

[Sandi16]

Is it normal for the hair to seem kind of hard to pull out? Louie looks amazing all over except for his darn head. The hair is long and white and oily and desperately needs to be removed. I work on it a bit here and there, but I feel like I'm YANKING it out. I stopped today because I saw a bead of blood!! It's obvious it needs to come out, but it's so hard to do. Any suggestions? Thanks. I know stripping questions get tedious after awhile. I want him to have the gorgeous red he's got all over his body and the part I stripped on his head.

[Tracy A.]

I use a pumice stone when i'm stripping hair, you might want to try taking just a tiny bit of hair and use a pumice stone to pull it.

[sanford]

I watched a demo once where the groomer would take only a very small amount of hairs at any one time... Maybe only 4 - 6. They released really easily with almost no need to tug.

[kittdog]

Sometimes head hair can be harder to come out since it can tend to be a bit softer. I've never had or heard of blood when stripping a cairn, I wonder if he had hurt spot on his skin that caused the blood versus the hair pulling. Or since he has oily hair he might have a skin issue that is making his skin sensitive to the pulling.

To get a better grip on the hair you can use latex gloves. If the hair is dead and ready to come out you shouldn't have to pull terribly hard.

[jimnconnie]

I haven't drawn any blood yet while stripping their heads, but upon close examination I have seen reddened skin on top of the head. I think this happens when I get in a hurry to finish, as the head is the last area that I do. If I'm in a rush I probably try to pull too much hair at one time, and this causes irritation to the scalp area. This is a good reason for not trying to do too much at one time, maybe save stripping the head for another day.

Jim

[Nena]

I strip the ears (taking the top half of the ear hair off and some off the top, if I am having trouble or Nena is not cooperating. She hates me to do her head, I use thinning shears or just trim and strip together. It turns out good and much easier on her.

[MegsMom]

You know, very few reds are the same color all over, even clear reds (and most have distinctly lighter undercoats), so his head hair may be lighter, naturally, than the rest of his body. My red brindle, has light wheaten hair on his chest, butt and tummy-- light enough, some of it could be termed pale cream or platinum. His head hair is a bit lighter than his body, but no where near the red of his 'topside', with obvious dark hairs mixed in everywhere (hence the brindle label), besides his dark muzzle, ears and tail tip.

I've never had plucking feel like 'yanking', sounds like that hair isn't ready to come out. If it's really long, you could use thinning shears (unless you're showing) to trim it back a little to 'tidy up' the shape, leaving enough to grab as it's ready to release.

And don't forget, cairns are coat-chameleons; what you want and what Mother Nature is doing, color wise, may not be in agreement. My boy used to have luscious Hershey's Cocoa-brown ears, now they're grey/silver. If I don't keep his ears plucked, the grown-out hair is much darker on the ends, but no way brownish-- very obvious 'color banding' on that hair. He's 9yrs, so age or coat-chameleon; only time will tell.