Dog Grooming

[alan40]

I have a young beautiful Golden Retrevier and a Icelandic Sheepdog mix (who is also a good looking dog ) that my wife gets hold of every spring with a pair of sissors. Boy do they look sad when she gets done but the up side is they are much cooler. I want to know what is the best tool/clipper to groom a dogs coat and any recomendationsout there. I priced a pair of clippers and they wanted a $115. Wow!!!!!/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif I thought tractor implements could be expensive.

 

[JJT]

Alan, That's about right for a high quality clipper set. We have an Oster that's at least 12 years old and still going strong. Your best bet is to make sure the winter coat is combed out and keep the clipping to a minimum. Long haired dogs tend to mat if they are clipped too short.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I have seen cheaper "pet clipper" kits. I wonder how long they will last in the "clip the whole dog once a year" scenario.

I bought an Oster Two-Speed Golden A5 clipper about 10 years ago. Works great. Over $100 at that time, so it hasn't gone up very much. I have bought two 5-F blades in the time I've had the clipper for use on my wife's Afghan Hounds (life is too short to groom them properly so I just clip them short in late spring). That blade leaves about 1/4" of hair. The #10 blade that came with the clipper leaves the hair too short for an overall clip IMHO.

I have found that the local pet supply stores do not stock all of the blades and clipper supplies I use. I drive less than an hour to one of the mail-order places when I need enough stuff to justify it. On-line catalogs can be used to keep the locals honest, too.

J.B.Wholesale

From my experience, clipping dirty hair will wear out your blades a lot faster than clipping clean hair.

 

[Boondox]

We have four goldens with gusts up to twelve at a time (Ragtag Golden Retriever Rescue), so have lots of experience with grooming. Several of the dogs that came to us clipped short have developed severe matting and sore spots as a result, so we never cut them short. Instead, we scissor out the mats that can't be worked out of their fur, and use a stripping comb to thin the remainder. We've rehabbed dogs in horrible condition, and never had trouble with this.

Pete