shaving dogs for fun and profit

Ha ha, no, it is neither fun nor profitable to shave dogs. I was just getting your attention. I’m hilarious.

I’m taking a break from my regular blog posts (which aren’t very regular anyway) to post another “technical” type post about dog grooming. To my blogger friends: you don’t have to read this unless it interests you! It is just something I wrote in the hope that this will help make sense of the whole “shaving dogs” thing and why it isn’t exactly a simple thing to do.

People often think that shaving a matted dog is easy. It isn’t. I’m not talking about dogs that have just a couple of mats behind their ears or on their belly. Those things happen, and it isn’t usually too difficult to remove them. What I am talking about is a dog that is matted to the skin from head to toe.

Dogs such as golden retrievers, shelties, border collies, or really any double-coated or “combination-coated” dogs, often get those little mats behind their ears or on their belly. Sometimes they also get matted in the longer furnishings on the back of their legs. It is often possible to clip out these mats and blend the hair around it so that it is not even noticeable. Unless the dog is really too matted to brush, or the dog is too old or fragile to withstand a lot of brushing, it is best not to shave a double-coated dog. You can see my post on that here.

Dogs that get matted all over, what groomers often call “pelted” because the hair often comes off in one piece, like a pelt, are the dogs that have long hair which continues to grow, if the hair is not regularly groomed. These are dogs such as poodles, malteses, shih tzus, and yorkies, just to name a few. These dogs should be regularly groomed every 4-8 weeks to prevent the hair from matting. Even if you are diligent about brushing your dog at home, you still need to have the dog groomed regularly to clip hair such as that which grows between the pads of the dogs’ feet and around the sanitary area, no less than every 8 weeks.

Side note here… The nails should also be clipped at least this often, and dogs that have hair growing up from inside the ear canal will need this hair pulled out at the same time. I have seen many dogs, usually poodles or other curly-coated dogs, that had hair actually matted down inside their ears! This should not happen, and it is difficult and painful to remove this hair once it gets to that point. If this hair is removed regularly, it will not hurt the dog at all to remove it. I use a powder that is like chalk, to grip the hair and pull it a tiny bit at a time, using only my fingers. Most dogs don’t object to this at all. Some are a little fussy, but it has to be done either way. Never pull all that hair at one time though, or it could hurt.

When I have to shave a dog closely due to matting, there are risk factors involved. First of all, you cannot use a long blade to leave the dog “fluffy”. If the hair is matted up to the skin, you must go beneath the matting. A clipper blade will not go through it. When you are clipping this close, it is possible to knick the skin because the skin will be pulled up right into the mat. You need to go very slowly. You can’t see the skin under the matting, so you must constantly make sure you are stretching the skin and looking at it as you go, to make sure you do not cut it. Also sometimes dogs have little bumps or “warts” that can catch on the blades, so you have to constantly be looking for that.

You must also use a very close clipper blade. The safest blade to use is a #10 blade, although I will try to use a #7 or 5 blade over the main part of the body, if possible, which will leave it little bit longer. The longer the blade, the more space in between the teeth of the blades, which means that the skin is more likely to get pulled up with the mat and caught in between those teeth. Any shorter and the blade is right up against the skin and can also cut the skin more easily. In grooming school we called a #10 blade our “safe” blade due to the placement of the blade and the teeth.

Legs and feet are the most difficult part of the dog to shave. So many dogs have matted hair right in between their toes. You can’t just run a razor over it and shave it off. You have to be very careful and sort of “carve” out the toes. They also very often get matted in between the pads of their feet, and that is another area you must be very careful with. I usually have to go extremely close to get that hair off, using a #40 blade, which is like a surgical blade. A longer blade will not get close enough to get under the hair there.

Dogs usually do not like having their feet clipped like this! They fuss and some may try to bite. Groomers have to use a grooming loop to restrain the dog from moving around. This is not cruel in any way. It is not a noose; it doesn’t tighten when they pull on it. It actually is much safer for the dog to be restrained in this way, as a wiggly dog can easily hurt himself, or the groomer. When I have a very wiggly dog I also attach the bottom of the grooming loop to the side of the bar, which is similar to cross-tying a horse. It prevents them from moving around and also keeps the loop from cutting into the dog’s neck. Also, for safety reasons, when a dog is on the grooming table, a groomer should always have one hand on the dog to prevent the dog from stepping off the table.

Legs on dogs are very bony, and the mats can be in between the bones. Again, you have to sort of “carve” out those bones if the dog is that tightly matted. Often dogs will fuss and wiggle, and it will take a long time to do this carefully. I am also constantly switching blades because the blade will get hot if you keep it running. When I switch blades, I place the blade I am not using on a metal counter, which tends to cool it faster. Some groomers use a marble tile. There is cooling spray that can be used to cool the clipper blades, but I find that it tends not to work very well, and it also makes the blade oily. It can also damage the plastic parts on the back of the blades.

Armpits are another area that needs to be shaved. I do this on all dogs that are clipped. When you lift the dog’s leg, there will be skin stretched out under it, and you need to watch this very closely to make sure that the edge of the skin does not go into the blade. This is a very delicate area, and I always use a #10 blade here. Another area that is often matted is underneath the tail where it attaches to the body, and around the dogs’s sanitary area. Feces will get matted here too. If it is too tight to the skin, I will wash the hair there first to loosen it, but if possible I find it is easier to clip that off before the bath.

Some dogs’ faces are matted too, and as you can imagine, they are not always very happy to have you fuss with their face, especially when their skin is already uncomfortable from being pulled up into matted hair. Around the mouth, you need to stretch out their lips to clip the hair. Around the eyes and ears you need to be very careful that they do not toss their head and get cut. It is usually safer to use clippers than scissors for this reason, but some dogs will not tolerate the clippers on their faces. Some dogs will tolerate them better than scissors; you just have to figure out what works best for each dog.

I hope this will give people something to consider when they think about what is involved in shaving a dog. I am tired of hearing, “Oh, just shave it” when it is way more work than to “just” shave a dog. It is very delicate work to shave an extremely matted dog, and it takes a lot of time and patience. So be sure to have your long-haired dog groomed every 6 weeks or so to prevent this from happening!