Doodle Grooming

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A place to discuss grooming issues.

A chance to ask a professional groomer for advice.

A place to start discussions that will be of interest to the many fledgling groomers here. Be sure to add tags!

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Coat types

Doodles come in three main coat types. Wool, fleece and hair. If you consider a woolly wool coat to be at one end of a scale and shedding coarse hair coats to be at the other end, your doodle could have a coat anywhere in-between. Not only that...it could be a combination of more than one type. Coats can also be very curly, somewhat curly, spiral curls, wavy or quite straight.

Hint for maintaining your favourite look.

You will find lots of pictures on this site of great looking doodles. Use them to take to your groomer to show what look you like or use them to follow for home grooming.

Coat Change from Puppy to Adult
Somewhere between 8 and 12 months doodles start growing their adult coats. Matte time! Since they don't shed, you need to comb the puppy coat out. This takes quite a bit of dedication and this stage can go on for several months. If you let your puppy mat at this time and resort to shaving, you STILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM. You cannot shave it away. At some point, you must comb that puppy coat out. To make this stage easier, scissor the coat to about 2 inches in length so there is less to tangle. A seriously good way to reduce brushing is to buy a high speed blower. It produces cool air at high volume and really helps clean and untangle the coat.

Combing your doodle.
Use a steel comb. Start from one foot and brush..yes brush with a brush..the hair up. Then start down at the foot again and brush down in layers, making sure to always get to see the skin in the area you are working on before you go on. After about and inch or two, comb where you brushed. If the comb won't go thru, start again. Work thru the whole coat in this fashion.
Make sure you hit all the areas.
inside, outside and back and front of legs
upper and lower chest
sides, back and under tail
top of head and neck all the way around
under ears, chin and face
If a wool dog is very matted, it can take 10 hours to demat. If you have a fleece coat that is in good shape, it should take an hour or less to brush and comb the whole dog thoroughly.
Worst trouble spots: in front of hind legs, armpits, under tail and neck

To Do List for regular maintenance.
1. brush and comb twice a week or when ever you feel mattes ..dampen after brushing
These things to be done every 4 to 6 weeks
2. trim hair from between eyes as required to keep it from poking into the eyes
3. shave belly
4. trim hair from around anus and on male or female parts to prevent messy mattes that can get infected from bacteria
5. clip nails
6. trim feet ...inside of feet, around toes and trim length so it just barely touches the ground.
7. trim hair above eyes so it does not obstruct sight
8. pull hair from inside ears and clean with ear cleaning solution
9. shave hair from base of ear to increase airflow into the ear

Links to Grooming Information from this forum.

coming

How to trim feet
You can trim feet with scissors or clippers. I prefer to use a combination of both. I first cup the dog's foot in my hand so the bottom is visible and keeping my scissors flat to the bottom of the foot, I trim all hair sticking beyond the foot. Next I take my clipper with a number 10 or 40 and trim inside between the large pad the the small toe pads. From the top of the foot looking down, I pull a hair back from toes and scissor hair from around nails and between toes. You can to this with a clipper too and make 'poodle toes'...not to be confused at all with poodle feet. You want the foot to have lots of volume from the top, but look clean underneath.

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Comment by Barb @ Gemstone Labradoodles on Wednesday: That's great Linda

Comment by Linda Carel on Tuesday: Barb, a couple weeks ago I ask you about the trouble I was having with grinding my dogs nails. I had never had problems before. Well, I solved the problem. The dogs were groomed last week, and I ask my groomer to grind their nail and to see if she had problems. She had no problems. When she showed me how she did, our technique was not too different, but I noticed the grinder was not as noisy as mine. We have the same grinder. The problem was I did not have the shaft that holds the Emory pad screwed in tight enough so there was more vibration and it was too noisy! I fixed the problem and I had no problem grinding their nails! Simple solution for a big problem!

Comment by Ricki and Tara (doodle) on Tuesday: For some reason the hair around their eyes seems to grow so fast! Or maybe it's that just a little growth makes a big difference in that area. I trimmed on Tara's face a couple of days ago and DH keeps commenting about how different she looks with her eyes showing so much. I guess it's been a while! LOL

Comment by DJ & Chance on Tuesday: LOL, Star. I scissor cut Chance today because he was so shaggy (and getting matted) even though he has a grooming appointment on Thursday!

Comment by Star and Goldie on Tuesday: "Mommy, why are Goldie's eyes hiding? She looks like a different puppy"... straight from the mouth of a 3 year old... I think she's trying to tell me that Goldie needs a good grooming! Haha!

Comment by Barb @ Gemstone Labradoodles on May 17, 2013 at 7:40pm: We can start a new discussion and add pictures of our favorite looks. Should include description of coat type.

Comment by Star and Goldie on May 17, 2013 at 7:21pm: That checklist is the same one that keeps popping up on here though and doesn't help me much. I know it's great for a lot of people but I'm just not a fan of the pics that are with it. It's not enough for me to go off of and I need pictures vs those steps since all of that verbiage isn't a lingo I speak. I need a shaggy doodle grooming for dummies picture book:)

Comment by Star and Goldie on May 17, 2013 at 7:17pm: Wow the doodle on that main page is absolutely gorgeous! It's almost getting time for Goldie to need a cut since her hair is getting long so I've been looking at longer shaggy coat grooming since I still want the shag look.

Comment by Joanne ~ Spud* on May 17, 2013 at 6:45pm: Star,
here is a link from idog.biz where you can download a file and then print it out. It lets the groomer know, step by step, a doodle cut. Or, you can just print pics here of a doodle you like!
Hope this helps
http://www.idogrescue.com/index.php/about-doodles/professional-dood...

Comment by Bonnie and Kona on May 17, 2013 at 6:44pm: gross and maddening.

I'm ready to be mad tonight... about anything.

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