Best clippers for a doodle?

[Shari Becker]

Hi everyone,

I have an almost three-year-old doodle who has fleecy curls. After two years of unsuccessfully dealing with her mats between grooming appointments, we just gave up and began having her sheared at each appointment. Only her face gets shaped. Aside from her face, we really don't mind having her short, or even slightly uneven. What we do mind is that we pay $125 a groom every six to eight weeks. There was no price reduction when we told them to stop trying to de-mat her.

We live small and urban with no real space to set up a real grooming station, but I am wondering if I should try to just shear her myself? My groomer keeps trying to talk me out of it, saying it is dangerous to get it wrong. That I can hurt her with the clippers, but I can't see how that's really possible. Don't most of these have safety features where you set the length?

I figure I've now spent almost $3000 on grooming and surely there can be no harm in trying to cut her myself.

So:

Am I nuts to try in limited space? Or with a dog who has never gotten a haircut from her 'mom'? What's the best tool for a shearing? Am I right that I could shear her legs and body, but would need to really trim her feet, tail and face with scissors and brushes, etc... 

Thanks,

Shari

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

I don't think you're nuts for thinking about grooming your doodle yourself, but as several have already pointed out, you would need to brush/comb out any mats before anything else. The 'anything else' part is bathing, blow drying with a high velocity dryer (HVD) and then finally clipping and scissor cutting. It's a whole process that can take hours. Personally, I wouldn't have undertook the chore of grooming my 2 standard-sized doodles if I didn't have a dedicated room in which to do it. The blow drying alone sends lots of pet dander/hair all around the room, despite setting up a large box fan placed backward in the window as an outtake air vent and running a HEPA air filter unit. With a contained room it's much easier to keep clean. If you don't mind an uneven cut you may be able to avoid the HVD. I've never tried it. I'm certainly not one to discourage home grooming, as I think it's the way to go with doodles. I've probably saved thousands in the 3 years I've been doing it. I'd just hate to see you invest in all the equipment to discover home grooming doesn't fit into your lifestyle and living space.

[Shari Becker]

Thank you, Debb. I think I will ask my friend if I can borrow her grooming kit before investing myself. I honestly don't have a space that I can dedicate to this chore aside from my kitchen. I'm now feeling a little daunted by the process. I think I thought I'd bathe her one day, let it dry then groom her the next. I can't imagine where I will set up all this stuff. I live small and urban ... no yard, no basement. I don't think I understood that I also need a special dryer.

[Kamela & Beckett]

I don't have a special dryer. I let him air dry or use my hair dryer that I use for me. I used the clippers on Beckett for the first time today. I really like the clippers, they worked well. However, clipping him is a different matter than my mini schnauzer. He has a thick, curly coat and we struggled to get him combed out enough to get the clippers through. My husband and I worked at it off and on for a large part of the day (and we're still not 100% done). While we both work full time, we are empty nesters so we don't have obligations with our kids now for the most part. It's time consuming, so you might consider that.

[Shari Becker]

His coat looks very similar to Lexi's. I suspect this will be a bigger project than I anticipated, which is why I'm now double-y sure I should borrow a friend's tools to try it out first. Did you put him on a table?

[Kamela & Beckett]

I ordered a grooming table, but it's not here yet, so we used a card table with a towel in it. With no bar to hook a restraint to, my husband was in charge of corralling him while I did the hair cut.

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

I think that's the main reason for blowing out the coat with a high velocity dryer. Not only does it dry the coat effectively, it stretches out the curls making the clipper glide through the coat easily. I use a slicker type brush (not a Les Pooch brush) to brush while drying which helps straighten the coat further. With the coat fluffed out and straightened you can use different lengths of attachment combs on the clipper.

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

If you don't already do this, you may want to consider starting with baths, blow drying and detail scissor work. That's what I did for years on Lucy between professional grooms. That got me use to a portion of the process before graduating to full clipper cuts. It was a BIG step for me and took a LOT of courage to actually do my first clipper cut. I have pictures on my page (under 'Photos') of my first attempts (3 yrs ago) at clipper cutting both Lucy and Oscar if you'd like to check them out. 

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I remember the first pass I took with the clippers.  It was on Sophie and she was 2 and had never had a full haircut.  She had long sort of wavey hair.  It took me forever to get up the nerve to do it.  As soon as I took that first pass it was like I couldn't stop.  She looked so much better underneath and it was so much easier than I thought it was going to be ... I was hooked.

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

I can imagine that was quite a transformation! Both Lucy and Oscar had shortish hair when I first started clipper cuts, so it wasn't a huge difference. Those first few passes, though, were very tentative ones. Once I got the hang of it, I was fearless! I've found with doing it myself I'm a whole lot less critical of the outcome than when a pro did it. If course, if I don't like some aspect of the cut, I can just fix it, or wait for the hair to grow out. On the whole, the things I use to be critical about are non issues now.

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Exactly ... the last time they went to the groomers I specifically said do not cut their eyelashes and she did.  I was so mad.  Now, I cut them all the time, lol!  

[Stephanie and Ragley]

That is exactly how I felt! So funny. It was so difficult to run that first stroke, but after that, I was like an addict!