Coats, Ears, Head furnishings. What about Tails ?

[Scoo's Mom]

I was reading in the standard about tails. They describe carriage of the tail and groomed like a carrot ect, But what about actual length ? And how far should hair extend past the actual tip of the tail bone ?

[bradl]

That depends a bit on how long the tail is itself. If the tail is on the long side, you'd pretty much have nothing past the tip, blending the shape down from the tip itself. If you have tail that's too short, you'd let the tip grow out a bit and blend down from the 'extension.'

How do you know if the tail is long or short? If you look at the ideal Cairn in silhouette and laid an imaginary ruler from the tip of the ear to the tip of the tail, the ruler will be level.

In practice, I generally just try to not let more than a quarter inch grow past the tip. The tip can be sensitive to pull, so for pets I'm not above just taking a stripping knife and breaking the hair off close to the tip, or using thinning shears to reshape the tail. A perky tail is one of the highlights of the breed, so it's great when they look nice. I tend to think of the shape as more of a Christmas tree than a carrot though.

[Scoo's Mom]

Thank you Brad. I'm trying to start off right. Having an equestrian background I think makes me a bit OCD.

My poor pup is not for show but want her to have that beautiful Cairn look. Her tail was getting a bit of a fan effect, and your right those long wiry hairs have been very resistant to pulling.

I do have some thining shears I will try also. I think she's in that weird puppy stage at first her ears looked tiny then they looked big, she's growing leaps and bounds and hers ears look small again but her little tail all of a sudden looks long.

I tease her and say Hailey everything is growing except your short little legs.

[Scoo's Mom]

A quick update, we are getting ready to go for an overnight out of town to visit family. So I gave Hailey her first bath and trimmed her tail .( Wow what a difference!)

Can't believe how it changes the whole look so dramatically. Not big into the bathing thing for Cairns she's always smelled great, acually sometimes smells like she's wearing babypowder or something. But my sister has big time smell issues.

She allows her secretary to bring her Shitz Tzu pup to work and she love's her but is always complaining about her odor. I thought Uh Oh, better to bath her and not get the wrath. I have some doggy Timmy Hole digger cologne too.

I broke my camera at Halloween and am hoping Santa brings me a new one so I can get some shots of Hailey to post.

Hailey's first trip to Hollywood :!:

[kcsdogs]

My Cairn is a rescue but practicing grooming on him is great since we plan on getting in to showing Cairns later on. His tail is on the long side but so are his ears and his tail tip is even with the tips of his ears. So when I strip the tail I take EVERYTHING off the tip and EVERYTHING off the tips of the ears (he can't afford the extra lenght) He also has a seriously...........not straight tail it curves at the end pretty bad so in order to "help" that to look better I leave the coat heavier on the inside of the tail. I am far from great at grooming but it basically comes down to the dog's over all appearance ~does he appear in balance with himself.