Yak Attack

[tena]

Sophie is disappearing under a sea of fur!!!.

When Sophie arrived her fur touched the ground and was predominately silver. It came out by the handfuls and she had critters. I took her to a groomer in Oct and told them to clip all her hair really short. My concern was hygine not fur quality.

I picked her up wearing a cocker spaniel cut and 2 bows in her ears. (we only laughed in private) Her fur was an auburn blonde!

Since then, we have trimed the long hair on her legs with shears. And trimmed her belly fur to match the new growth after surgury. We have also trimmed her bangs.

She is a shaggy fur ball, her hair is so thick and is growing so fast its a shame. Her ruff is 3 inches long....since Oct. !!!!!

I live in rural wv, and petsmart, or petco, are not availible to me. We have two groomers in my area. The first , we went to, and specializes in poodles and cockers. The second, maltese and yorkies. Niether have ever groomed a cairn, although one recognized Sophie was a cairn.

My local feed store does not carry stripping knives, or Marrs groomers.. I have availible a selection of rakes, combs and shears........And a shaggy brown dog that looks like a mop.

Arrgghh!

I am way over my head and have NO experience grooming a dog. Any ideas on what rakes, or combs to use.

[Marmielin]

I'm sure no expert, but I ordered the Mars Coat King and some thinning shears from Colonel Potters Cairn Rescue. They have all sorts of grooming supplies etc. Others on this forum will give great grooming advice, but as far as the tools I know they were very reputable to deal with.

LindaB

[Tracy A.]

As silly as this may sound, i've found that hand stripping is pretty easy and low tech... no special tools needed... just start pulling while holding the skin down- dead hair will come out easy, live hair will stay put.

I have a pair of thinning sheers from a beauty supply place that I use on the leggs and tummy. I've also found that when you hand strip it last longer- when I use sheers its about every 6-8 wks....

The CTCA has a wonderful grooming booklet that helped me greatly.

Tracy

[tlwtheq]

This is going to sound like a really lame question from someone who's had Cairns in her life since 1983, but is stripping supposed to be a life-long activity?

My guys look great to me, but who knows? Is it a matter of whether you see a lot of dead, dry-looking hair?

You see...I never got educated on the subject and have never done it.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Tara, Olie and Teddy's Mom

[maggie]

I got all my supplies from Colonel Potter's Cairn rescue also you can order on line

http://mall.cairnrescue.com/inv_groom.htm

[wags]

I noticed the pet ultrasonic trainer. Anybody here ever use that?

It's under miscellaneous in the middle of the page (a blue thing.)

http://mall.cairnrescue.com/inv_groom.htm

[Cairnmania]

This is going to sound like a really lame question from someone who's had Cairns in her life since 1983, but is stripping supposed to be a life-long activity?

My guys look great to me, but who knows?  Is it a matter of whether you see a lot of dead, dry-looking hair?

You see...I never got educated on the subject and have never done it. 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Tara, Olie and Teddy's Mom

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Stripping is life-long, although for some real oldies (dog and owner!) clipping may be a better choice.

You know you need to strip when the hair is long, a lot tends to come out when you comb, and it starts looking rather dead and dull. I pull some hair on my dogs ever couple of weeks and never need to do a major strip out. Even when I've let it go longer than I like and do a heavy strip there is always new hard outer coat coming through already.

If you are happy with the way your dogs look and your dogs have no skin problems - then keep on clipping if you prefer. I haven't met a dog yet that jumped for joy when they realized they were about to be stripped, even though for most areas it's no bother to them at all.

BTW, your dogs look cute!

Stacey

[tlwtheq]

Thanks, Stacey.

Tara

[Maggie15]

I agree with Mysticsol8... stripping can be easy and low tech... for us it takes both of us to do it, one to hold, one to strip (and clip where necessary). It probably makes a lot of sense for your dog to be stripped so that she gets a nice fresh healthy coat in... we handstrip using a dr.scholls foot scrub (in the picture) for grip, hold it in your palm and use your thumb against the stone to pinch the hair and pull. hold the skin tightly so it doesn't pull her skin and pull in the direction of hair growth. We use the thinning shears on her belly, lower legs. As a new cairn owner (almost a year!), we find the stripping/rolling part of the routine for us... we don't 'roll' her coat as often as we should, we do it once a month or so... and we only really 'stripped' her once, her first strip to rid of puppy fluff...

This picture is from what i would think is more a 'rolling' than a full 'stripping' although it was about 2-3 months long at that point, so there was a lot of hair!

These are from her first 'stripping'...we still had to clean up her face and legs, she looked like a different dog, we left her a month or two too long before stripping...

[tlwtheq]

Hey, thanks everyone. I did a preliminary inspection on my Lads last night and there are indeed some soft hairs that come out easily. With your good tips plus some of the other appends I've read here I should be able to get a great start.

Tara, Olie and Teddy's Mom

[Toto]

The CTCA has a complete illustrated grooming guide for $7 in the shop section

Cairn Terrier Grooming - Start to Finish

Photographs and drawings make this an easy-to-use and comprehensive guide to grooming your Cairn Terrier. A must for every Cairn owner. A CTCA publication.

$7.00