i've been practising

i have been practising my trimmimg since i am not so confident and normally ask a friend to do the finer bits for showing. anyway i thought i would share with you the before and after pictures of one of my girls. her furnishings are awfully thin and limp.
please any comments or ways to improve are welcomed
Before:


in the bath:

and groomed up:



Thanks for looking

Not bad for a first effort! But there are a couple things you could change to improve her a bit. Just remember that you will improve with practice...

First, your underline is a horizontal line, and this makes her look like she has too much body with legs that look too short. Your line starts in a good place behind the front legs, but make the line more diagonal, going up toward the loin and the fringe on the back legs. That will lengthen her legs a bit more. Scissor a little bit and then stand back and look at your line. Keep doing that until everything looks balanced.... body to legs.

It looks to me like you may have left the hair too long at the top of the front legs, on the side. I suspect that if you look at the dog from the front, particularly when she moves, that she will look out-at-the-elbows because of that hair. Fluff that hair up with a comb and see if more needs to come off. I also pick the foot up by the toes, give that leg a shake, let it drop into place, and see what the hair on the sides of the leg looks like. It seems like there is always a bit more to trim.

For the future, don't cut the lower front of the front leg (above the toes). If you do that, when the hair falls, you see the foot, and you don't want to see that. I also wouldn't cut in quite so much at the back of the front foot/leg. Doing both of those together makes the dog look down-in-the-pasterns. For now, cut the foot as close to the toes in the front as you can. (And make sure those nails are as short as you can safely make them.)

The only other thing I would do is to take thinning shears to the top of the eyebrows so that they are more in line with the head/skull. Lay the shears on top of the skull, and carefully take off any hair that sticks up above the top of the skull to improve the look of the head.

thank you so much for your tips i will take them on board and try to put them into practise for he rnext trim. my girl is actually loose on her elbows from where i let her run up the stairs as a young dog apparently so i will have to remember that. about the skirt, the girl who has been mentoring me has had to tell me off a bit for going in to sharp with the skirt, apparently i make the dogs look too racey so its mostly trying to find the right medium for now but again i will remember your tip and try to do it. I have discovered i very much like the european style of grooming and have been trying to copy that a little.
thanks so much for taking the time to reply and your black and silver is stunning!

Are you at SCGB? I'd be happy to have a chat with you there about her grooming and offer some ideas (it's easier to show then tell!)

I would take more off that hair on the chest shaping it down from the breastbone at the moment it just draws the eye to the 'chest' being made up of hair instead of dog! it can also make the eye think the dog is longer then she is.

Front legs, use the comb to flick the hair up so it stands at right angle to the leg, then scissor upwards (as you would on a poodle), visualise the line you want to follow, eg. from front of toe up to the dent where the front leg joins the body. Try to see the line before you start cutting. As Karen said, atm the leg is giving the impression of her being down on pastern. I know you like the curve shape at the bottom of the leg but that needs to be much lower down the leg used more to highlight the tightness of the foot.

I would also take the stripping knife into the legs furnsihings and skirt, it will help to remove some of the brown and the coarser hair that grows back will help to hold the leg hair in place. As said above, you do need to angle the skirt, stand back and hold your comb at various angles to try out what will work best on her shape, you want to show a deep chest without a huge amount of tuck up. Has she changed shape since her litter? Sometimes you need to keep reassesing how the dog looks after grooming as their body shape changes as they mature.

Eyebrows, i would use the scissors to tighten the outside corner of the eye, taking that hair away will lengthen the look to her head from the side, removing enough hair from the inside corner of the eye and stop will allow the eyebrows to fall flatter.


When grooming you might find it helpful to have a copy of the breed standard out next to you, so you can see what is important about each part of the body as well as what the overall look and balance of the dog should be. Ask yourself, does the way the dog is normally groomed on this part actually show off what the breed standard asks for? Can changing the way that bit is groomed improve or make it worse? You can try different looks by the way you comb out the hair, use the back of the comb to hide the excess hair on skirt or back pastern and you can play with the lines visually without having to cut. If you think a slightly different way will work better, give it a go, the hair will grow back! just remember that when grooming your next dog, to start from scratch and see what works best for their body shape.

One final thing, we all have a preference about how we like our dogs to look but sometimes you have to modify your prefered look for the showring.

Thanks Jo for your reply, since looking back at the photo i can see exactly what ms britmor said about the skirt straight off. like i say the shape on the front legs was a bit experimental and as i rarely show ruby now due to fading she is good to practise and mess about on
Yes i will be at SCGB and would be most grateful if you could spare a little time to show me a few tips but if you are too busy i understand! who are you showing? Guy and Connie? I will only enter Kolo i should think

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to write your replies. When i groom up the other two i will post pictures and maybe you can see if i have made improvements.

I haven't decided who to enter atm!

You should enter your white girl, the whites need to be seen at club events to help with people accepting them.

blacknwhite wrote: my girl is actually loose on her elbows from where i let her run up the stairs as a young dog apparently so i will have to remember that.

We live in a split-level, meaning our main living level goes down seven steps to the front door and garage, and then down seven more steps to our lower level and out into the back (dog) yard. My puppies are kept in the kitchen, and I start taking them outside at five weeks if the weather is nice enough. By seven weeks the puppies are starting to go down the stairs by themselves, and about the same time they are learning to go upstairs. I have done this for YEARS, and I have never had a puppy grow into a dog that was loose in the elbows. If a dog is loose in the elbows, there is a structural reason.

Jo wrote:I haven't decided who to enter atm!

You should enter your white girl, the whites need to be seen at club events to help with people accepting them.

yea maybe i will Jo, it just gets frustrating when you don;t even get looked at, take the november show, freya should have beat those two black dogs hands down and i felt like it was done to spite the colour-maybe i was just being silly. i love taking her to shows and she enjoys it, but i am not flush with cash so when entries are £20+ for a judge to completely ignore her i dont see a point but for an open show at a fiver or so i dont mind.
but like you say they need to get seen and get out there. i will take freya to the scgb and the mini club show whether i show her or not as i have been advised some people will be there that i would like to meet and speak to about her. I would like to mate her later this year so i would really like to get some opinions on her/or suitable stud dogs i should say and to pick the brains of those in the know

MsBritmor wrote:

blacknwhite wrote: my girl is actually loose on her elbows from where i let her run up the stairs as a young dog apparently so i will have to remember that.

We live in a split-level, meaning our main living level goes down seven steps to the front door and garage, and then down seven more steps to our lower level and out into the back (dog) yard. My puppies are kept in the kitchen, and I start taking them outside at five weeks if the weather is nice enough. By seven weeks the puppies are starting to go down the stairs by themselves, and about the same time they are learning to go upstairs. I have done this for YEARS, and I have never had a puppy grow into a dog that was loose in the elbows. If a dog is loose in the elbows, there is a structural reason.

I took ruby at about 8-9 months to a schnauzer specialist to strip her out as i had had her clipped once and then decided i would like to show her. the lady spoke to me about her conformation etc and she asked if i allowed ruby to go upstairs which i did, she told me due to her running up and down the stairs its pushed her elbows out and due to me just starting out i have never questioned this so thats what i have always believed.

blacknwhite wrote:

Jo wrote:I haven't decided who to enter atm!

You should enter your white girl, the whites need to be seen at club events to help with people accepting them.

yea maybe i will Jo, it just gets frustrating when you don;t even get looked at, take the november show, freya should have beat those two black dogs hands down and i felt like it was done to spite the colour-maybe i was just being silly. i love taking her to shows and she enjoys it, but i am not flush with cash so when entries are £20+ for a judge to completely ignore her i dont see a point but for an open show at a fiver or so i dont mind.
but like you say they need to get seen and get out there. i will take freya to the scgb and the mini club show whether i show her or not as i have been advised some people will be there that i would like to meet and speak to about her. I would like to mate her later this year so i would really like to get some opinions on her/or suitable stud dogs i should say and to pick the brains of those in the know

£12 to enter scgb

i can think of a couple of dogs to suggest for her but it really depends on what YOU want to improve on, what is more important to you, if you intend to keep a pup from the litter. You could also consider using a different colour sire to improve on her and then put a pup from that litter back to white.

Jo i would very much like to keep a pup from the litter if there was something good enough, i would love to hear your suggestions. I am normally not an advocate of colour mixing but it has since been an idea in my mind that due to some concerns i have with ruby i would consider putting freya to either my boy or to a black to also use her as a foundation bitch to my black line as well as the white but as yet i don't know enough about what i'll get etc so its just an idea i am toying with and not 100% on doing it anyway. would love to talk this stiff over with you maybe at the show if we find time-i know what its like at shows when the trimming and prep before the class is all hands to the pump

looks like you are doing a great job! handsome dog!