Stripping-Please Help

[Courtbro]

I also posted this comment in the "petsmart stripping topic". So in regard to the stripping topic--I also found a groomer near my home that will do stripping. Her brother has a Cairn male, like me, and she strips his. She told me that she will strip him, clip his nails, and groom the rest of him for $20!!! I want to keep the natural look of a Cairn, but I will never show Scotch, he is just my little boy, and I do not want to hurt him. Do you think I should just have her clip him??? I made him an appointment for tommorrow morning so any advice would be appreciated. I don't know if this helps, but Scotch is 5-1/2 months old.

What I really need to know is, does it hurt them, and if so what, if any besides showing, are the downfalls of clipping???

Please Help!!

Court

[bradl]

Properly done, stripping should not really hurt. Dead coat comes out easily. Some parts of a dog ARE more tender than others, and one should go slow there (just a few hairs at a time) so as not to cause undue discomfort.

Stripping is generally considered to be the very best thing for skin health and coat health. Opinions vary though, as to how inappropriate clipping is on a pet, so you're probably not going to get a definitive answer. Some breeders will die before taking a clipper to a Cairn coat. Some experienced folk report good experiences with clipping and use it on their old ones, where coat quality is no longer an issue. Others feel clipping leads directly and inexorably to poor skin health, odor, and soft coats.

One reason the Coat King is so popular is that while it does cut some coat, it also pulls some coat. For the companion Cairn this feels like a reasonable compromise to many as it is fast and relatively easy, but keeps a certain amount of healthy coat coming in.

If I were paying someone to do my dogs, and the cost was not outrageous, I'd go for the stripped coat every time. I love a nice harsh coat with just a slight aroma of garden dirt We use a Coat King on our older boy and girl and hand-strip their heads and tail occasionally, along with any wisps along their outline.

p.s. Please don't double post.

[Courtbro]

Thank you Brad and sorry about the double post, I was just nervous.

I got to the groomer this morning and I took Scotch out of his kennel and the groomer scooped him right up and loved on him and he began licking her face, so I feel tons better knowing that he likes her.