IndigoMoon Aussies, Part 1 trimming Aussies for show/conformation
okay indigo moon Aussies today is February 1st and I’ve had a lot of people that have bought puppies and just some people that I’ve become acquainted with that have asked me to do some videos on show grooming and training we’re going to break this into two parts because of the way our camera works our movie and the first part I’m gonna do the trimming normally when you’re showing a dog you’re gonna bathe the dog the day before you leave so if I’m leaving for a show on Friday morning Thursday night I’m gonna bathe all my dogs I’m also gonna do nails and get as much trimming done as possible if you stay on top of the trimming meaning if you try to do it weekly or bi-weekly you will find that it’s a lot easier than letting them go if they’re not showing regularly like for example Sunday’s be tired he’s put on a little bit of weight since he’s retired and so I don’t I probably need to stay on him a little bit more so the first thing we’re gonna start with is how we trim and you can just because you have a pet doesn’t mean that you can’t trim this way but basically this is where we started so let me stand him up and I’m gonna start I normally start with paws and we’ll do the paws again we’ll be going over those again when we get them ready and do the ready for the show so you might need to come in closer Dennis you want to go at the back of the saw here and I cannot do this all the way down just because I’m pressed for time but all the hair in between the paws needs to be clipped so all of this on all the paws in between you’re gonna get it down to where there’s really no hair you’re gonna get it really close and then the back up to where the dewclaw would be you’re also going to trim that smooth and then we’ll look at that again while he’s standing so we’re starting with the inside part of the paw on all sides I’m using straight scissors for that there’s that one and when I do the show when I get them ready for the show that part when we do that in the second video that would be done at the show site just prior to going in the ring and allow yourself if you’re new allow yourself about an hour and 40 minutes if you have one dog once you get used to it sometimes you can get it done in about 45 minutes and it depends on the dog’s coat sunny has a little bit of curl in his coat so his coats a little bit harder for me to work with and Rico’s not here and sunny is the most cooperative for the most part he’s not sure why he’s being filmed so there’s a quick on the front now we’re gonna move to the back I’m gonna do the same thing we’re gonna lift up the back foot and we’re gonna get all and you want to get it really close I’m not getting it as close as I would because again I’m trying to show everything in a short period of time now we’re gonna I’ll do the Hawks after we finish the beat because that’s an important part but all all this should be gone and should be trimmed away let me do his other foot and then we’ll where I’ll show you the tops of the foot after again I’m using straight scissors for this okay on the Hawks and I know we have his breeches in the way the object of the Hawks and some people like I’m shorter stand and some people like them longer is to take away any loose scraggly hair and make it appear that it’s bone as opposed to coat so I like to take mine in pretty close so I’m gonna come down angling in just a little bit towards the foot and getting any scrabbles and I like to get a pretty tight close cut on my hocks especially if we have a dog that has decent bone and I’m using this brush this is a hard bristle type brush and they come in all sizes and varieties I have several of them they’re not they’re not expensive at all I have round and I have square so I’m gonna cut I’m also gonna go down here at the foot and look on all sides to make sure you have to sometimes kind of get down nope nope Stan okay let’s move to the tail since we’re here at the tail some people like a smiley face some people like a straight I always start with the straight and I’m gonna grab bigger pair of scissors because these are a little bit too slender on the tail I sometimes again Sonny’s coat is a little bit our standard calls for us straight to slightly wavy coat so it’s definitely within standard but unfortunately an AKC they do not like to see any curl or wave they want the coats to be straight so on a dog like Sonny I have to work a little bit harder and also you’ll see these stray white hairs that’s also common in a black try a specially as they age and get older and you just go in and you just clip them out so I just wanted to note that that’s very common there’s nothing wrong with that he’s just gonna go in and go through and get those done okay so on the tail you want to start so that the tail hangs just above where the anus comes in and again sometimes we have to look at the overall proportions of the dog to decide I’ve got to move on this side stand so I start there and I pull it up like this and then I even anything and again I will be going over everything on my show dogs when I’m grooming them for the ring this is what I do prior to their bath I bathe em I check again and then as I’m grooming them at the show site for the ring I fix anything that I didn’t catch so then I’m gonna go in with my thinning shears and these are a pretty heavyweight thinning shears and I’m gonna thin out some of that tail it also takes a little bit of the curl out of his coat and if you’re new to showing you’re gonna find that the scissors are like priced some of the straight scissors the smaller ones you can get for 25 to 40 dollars this pair of scissors right here is more in the $200 range so I when I began really getting serious I would just buy once a month I would buy one pair of scissors and I’m pretty well set now and then they need to be sharpened about once a year depending on how often they’re used so that’s again before I’m grooming him for the show let’s pretend like he just had this bath and he did have one last week and I’m kind of just getting them ready and I like that so far on the tail we could go a little bit wider depending on your dog if your dog has a good rear he’s got a solid rear so I don’t want to do too much on his tail if your dog is narrow in the rear you might want to go if you have a narrow dog if you widen the tail it gives the illusion of a wider rear if you have a bulky rear the opposite a smaller tail and then definitely go up and make the smiley face I don’t do a lot of the smiley faces but except on the bitch’s sometimes I prefer a straight tail but if you’re going to do the smiley face then you’re just going to start angling up and you’re gonna try to stick with cutting the dark and then brushing because you’ll see you’ll see as you brush let them sit down for a minute let’s move up to ears ears are important in the Australian Shepherd they’ll have to come in front or say because of expression and ears can be the most challenging for a lot of people to understand let me grab a good brush and Sonny has a beautiful head and a great expression in good ears so he’s a good candidate to show the ears okay so the first thing I’m using is a D matter and this is about $4 and I’m gonna go behind the ear and I’m gonna pull any mats they clump up right behind the ear and I’m gonna get those all pulled out as you can see we got quite a bit here and I didn’t I deliberately left his ears after his bath last week so that we could do this video so his ears are very overgrown I’m gonna come on this side do the same thing if you come across a big mat like right there as long as it’s not in the area of the face where it’s going to show you can just take your thinning shears and you can just kind of pull and cut their ears are bad formatting up plus for some reason I don’t know why I forgot to put I have a much better noose that I use and grooming arm but I don’t have it on today okay so looking at the ears the first thing is you’re going to open up the ear and you’re gonna cut like on a try you’re gonna cut the white and the light brown you want to be careful that you don’t cut into the stuff that’s going around the face this is just stuff that’s not really gonna show so the first thing I can do I can see that’s brown that’s light that’s inside the ear so pretty much any hairs that are inside the ears I’m gonna cut okay the next thing is we’re gonna pull the ear over I’m going to take my thinning shears and I’m gonna cut everything that goes past grows past the ear if you can see that now what I can do because I’m used to it it’s kind of bunching up in my hand so that I can go a little bit faster but all that needs to be fixed so you can fold the ear in half forward and then pretty much anything that’s sticking up like what you’re seeing any of that is going to be trimmed off squirrels over there again because of time I may not be able to show you a completed ear but eventually all this would be removed and they need to grab another pair of scissors those are getting dull on me let me get so again I’m folding the ear and I’m looking at everything that’s growing and sticking out and going past the ear line you can keep looking like this and when you see this bunchy stuff back here again you want to use thinning shears always with that and you want to take all that bulk out the line of the ear should be very clear so here we’re starting to get towards the face and you do have to be careful because that’s where their ear is so I’m going to take that out too and then let me show you on the front this needs to be at an angle but the bulk needs to come out and it needs to be shortened so I’m cutting in front of his face I’m kind of going at an angle it’s better to start with a little bit you can always cut more I may seem like I’m going fast but it’s just because I’m used to it and I want to make sure that we’re able to cover everything before it cuts out on us okay so his ears should look like we can leave one done and one undone so we can kind of make a comparison I’m gonna go back and I see some inside hair that can definitely keep trend with the state straight scissors now I’m gonna get my smaller scissors and the tip of the ear should be done and then you’re gonna come down and pull all along the ear and clean that ear line up and as you can see I’ve got this right here this is this definitely needs to come out so you keep working on the ears and then when you get to the head section you’re gonna want to come in front again depending on how head some people will do a little bit of trimming right here especially if you have a narrow head Sonny has a very plush wide head so I really don’t need to do that but I think we can already see the difference and this year step move up Sonny if we look at the difference between the trimmed ear which is still undone it still needs some fine-tuning but I wanted to give an idea so again we’re folding the ear we’re taking thinning shears and cutting anything that’s standing up then we’re going along the front we’re moving at an angle we’re taking out the bulk and we’re making a nice angle that comes down that’s going to come into this feathering here so that it kind of blends all blends in how much hair your dog has will be a factor and how much of that you want to take off this back behind the ear here that would all need to be cleaned by cleaned I mean taken off so all that that’s why say the ears if you stay on top of the ears you’re not faced with what I’ve got right now which I deliberately did so that we could get a really good idea of an overgrown ear so I think you can see the difference so we won’t spend a lot of time on the ear so we can move forward now there’s an the AKC ring they prefer I feel that we cut the whiskers if you’re showing in a stuff you cannot cut whiskers so if you’re gonna cut whiskers the first thing you want to do is cut these side that grow good boy study they grow under the chin they’re usually black or white you do have to be a little bit careful and then if you’re cutting the face whiskers which I cut they pull their whiskers in a little bit so often times you’ll say wow I thought I’d just cut those and you did and also the eyebrows I’m gonna move over here and get these here and I’m using straight scissors for the face he’s old news except for my left funny setting sorry open your mouth there you go it’s actually beautiful weather for this we got pretty lucky today yeah here’s stop okay so I’m holding the face so I’m cleaning up the face and then again like I said as we get ready okay so the next thing stand up we’ve gone over the tails we’ve gotten over the ears we’ve gone over the paws the top of the paws I’m gonna show you I normally do most of the work on the top of the paws when I’m getting ready to go in the ring what I’m doing show grooming but I’m just gonna give you an idea of how it’s gonna be you need one of these kind of brushes you need to pull that fur up like that you need to move get all the hair that comes up and go on a bit of an angle paws should be oval it should be a pretty tight you can use straight scissors if you’re careful on some stuff but you can also make it look so I go quickly and I move in a circular position and brush-up I keep going back and then there is the difference in the pause ha that’s done and I would come around then at that point on this pod that I’ve done and I would cut to the toe our foot pad line so I would even it up and it’s easy to see and so you can see the difference it looks like he has more bone it shows the nice oval foot so for now we’re going to shut off I’m gonna finish doing his other ear and paw and we’re going to go through a grooming session if we were getting ready to go in the ring
