How long should we let his hair get?

[Jane, Rooney & Stuart]

Yikes - we measured Rooney's hair today - it is 4 inches on his body and 3 inches on his head!!!!  Wow - that is really long.  He is only 5 months old.  How long is your doodles hair?  How long should we let it get or will it just stop growing?

[Harper's mom]

Rooney is absolutely gorgeous!! I love the long, scruffy look!!!

[Karina]

This topic is very important to me since my Rosie has a pretty challenging coat. She has super curly, curly and wavy fleece. We call her our hair sampler dog. I of course love their long hair but it is a very difficult coat. What us doodle owners gain by not picking up hair off the floor we loose in the grooming department. After a big haircut people on the street who know Rosie said, "oh she looks better with longer hair", but I say, come over to my house and do the haircut or give me the $150 that it sometimes cost. When we got my little one I decided to spend the money on clippers and blades and take the matter into my own hands. I just finished graduate school and there were times I just didn't have 4-7 hours to cut her hair. After a week at the beach the wet and sand cemented mats to Rosie's skin. It took me 16 hours to cut everything off by hand to not cause her discomfort.

 

At the park there are lots of long haired doodles and when I met most they have mats and they are soooo hot after running, i feel badly for them. Also the long haired face smells so bad, so I try to keep the face little long to give my skinny nosed noodle a little more definition.

 

My vote for all doodles is to keep them short. I dont' know how snow effects things since we live in California. This week we had temperature fluctuations from mid 40 to 75 and I think i will keep a sweater handy for when I tie up my pooch outside of a coffee store and keep her hair on the shorter side.

 

When Rosie was little a couple of doodle owners said...just look out for long haired doodle puppies at by 1 year they have to be shaved down almost to the skin because I guess all of us doodle owners are in denial at first about the reality of the hair maintenance.

[Lynda Kamrath]

Karina - some of us are thinking about cording our pups hair and so the questions about hair maintenance are very much in consideration.  My pup has his first haircut a couple of weeks ago, but we are still considering what would be best.  Since we do all our own grooming, we are going to kind of play it by ear, but we have to really pay attention to the matting.  Of course, shorter is much easier, especially if you have a dog that loves the water.  If you take them to the beach, they are going to get wet, so got to think about that also.  So much to consider!

[Karina]

I can completely relate to the haircut dilemas. You will love this one...after Rosie got home from the hospital on Monday (she had an Addison's crisis) I examined her closely and besides the front arms being shaved in the middle for IV needles her chest and belly were shaved in funky round areas that don't connect like big patches. I ordered her arm warmers to keep her shaved arms covered, cold weather is coming.

 

I think that cording might be an issue for doodles, unless you do a lot of tiny cords. When Rosie matted I found sores under a few of them that she scratched at and where irritated and a little bloody. Plus continuing cording might require a lot of time and effort. The other thing I worry about is that cords could get heavy since doodle hair grows so fast and that might get heavy and dirty. Have you seen any doodles corded.

 

[frances jeffery]

What A Lovely Lovely dog his little eyes under that frindge bless him X

[Dustin and Loni Valentine]

I would like someone to explain to me what the "coat change" is??? We are new to doodles and I have never heard of it....

[BG and Gavin]

Dustin and Loni, this is the coat change:  http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/coat-comparison-8-mons-vs-13

[Karina]

i just love the color! he is sure a cutie pie. is that a rare coloring? I was worned about the puppy coat change to adult coat. My friend said, have fun with your doodle hair and if you don't keep it short when the adult hair comes in get ready to shave your dog. We still missed it a bit and had to dematt while learning how to use the blades, scissors and keep Rosie from looking too silly. I think that was the time when we thought, let's see what Rosie looks like with really short hair, face and all. She looked like a skinny body and skinny nosed chicken....so funny.