Doodle Grooming

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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 HEIDI AND BOB "RILEY" on April 17, 2009 at 9:38am: HI MELISSA,
THAT IS EXACTLKY WHAT I DID WITH RILEY. CLOSE AROUND THE BRIDGE OF THE NOSE AND EYES, LONGER ON THE HEAD, AND ABOUT 1 TO 1 1/2 " ON BODY AND LEGS... AND I TOLD THE GROOMER DON'T TRIM THE OUTSIDE OF THE EARS. THE PICTURE HERE IS A FEW ABOUT A WEEK AFTER GROOMING. GOOD LUCK!!!! HEIDI

Comment by Melissa & Porter on April 17, 2009 at 4:54am: Hi,

I am looking for some grooming advice. My five month old curly fleece black Australian labradoodle is going to the groomers this Sunday for the first time.

I am having trouble trimming the hair around his eyes and paws and it will be summer soon. I let him play in the dirt a lot and he is slipping on our wood floors and his left eye seems a bit irritated from the curls go in towards it.

I have read the IDogz guide to grooming but I think I want him a bit more trimmed.

Does this make sense:

Close to the skin around his eyes and chin, upper muzzle and tail longer, and everything else about an inch long including the top of his head (I am not a fan of the poof on the top of the head).

What do you all think?

Comment by Sally, Ditzy Mitzi & Sgt. Pepper on April 15, 2009 at 8:56am: Hi Donna,

I found the info in this section on grooming excellent, though it does require a lot of reading time. Also thought that if you are able to print out some pics of
some of the beautiful doods here and bring them with you it might help.

Good luck.

Comment by Sally, Ditzy Mitzi & Sgt. Pepper on April 10, 2009 at 5:03pm: Hi Elyse,

Noah is darling, love his look! Thanks for the support.
I'd love to see a picture of Harley, too.
We called Mitzi a P'doodle after her haircut. :)

Comment by elyse on April 10, 2009 at 4:11pm: Noah looks soooooo cute :0)

Comment by elyse on April 10, 2009 at 4:01pm: I think she looks cute - they did the exact same thing to Harley last week. I laughed too though when I saw her.

Comment by Sally, Ditzy Mitzi & Sgt. Pepper on April 10, 2009 at 3:35pm: I know I am new here and I hope I don't get "kicked out" of the group, but I really love the "poodle-look". We have had six standard poodles over the last
forty years and really love them. Out of necessity, after Mitzi tripped me and I ended up with both elbows fractured, Ditzy Mitzi became matted on
her cheeks.

.For a while I was unable to properly brush her out daily. I ended up having to shave her face. Not only did she look beautiful, her wild behavior improved immediately. Not having hair on her chin also stopped the awful slobbering all over the floor after she would drink water.

As we are in South Florida she also swims almost daily in the summer so
keeping her coat short helps dry her coat up much more quickly. For us there
definitely is a benefit to the shorter, poodle look - minus the pom-poms of course!

Comment by Terri on April 10, 2009 at 1:35pm: Oh Boy! He' s little bit "poodly" but overall it could have been worse. He looks so flippin' skinny, though....HAHAHAHA...I totally laughed outloud when I saw him. Hope I didn't hurt the groomers feelings. He just looks silly. Good haircut, its what I wanted, but it made me giggle :-)

Comment by Terri on April 10, 2009 at 9:50am: Well I took Cooper for his first ever "short summer cut" today. I hope he doesn't come home looking like a poodle. I took a picture with me of a short cut I like, but...still a little nervous. I'll miss his long curls, but springtime is killing me with all the mud half way up his leg caked into his long curls. I think he'll be happier not having me tugging on his fur to get all the guck out of it all the time. Wish me luck! Here's a before pic...I'll post an "after" later

Comment by Denise, Winnie, and AngelAbby on March 31, 2009 at 7:35pm: that is something I started doing with Abby when she first came to us at 8 weeks old. She is used to the brushing and combing for the most part - tho I do give her something to chew on to distract her if she is on the hyper side.

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