Be honest...how much time does it take you...?
Honestly, if you have a sheepie in full coat, how long and how often to you spend grooming him/her? I am not lazy by any means. I don't think I am the most efficient when it comes to grooming. When Rheba's coat was about 3" long, I would spend about an hour brushing her about every other day. Does that sound right? What do you do? |
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| I do not know about a "show" coat but Bella is about a year, we have never trimmed her so her hair is as long as it has grown about 3+ inches and brushing is an everyother night thing for about an hour. Again she is not "show groomed" what ever that entails. |
| Angela,
An often quoted rule of thumb is that for each inch of hair length you need an hour of grooming per week. So an average of 8 inches of hair expect 8 hours per week of grooming. That's probably not too far off as long as you keep up to the grooming and if you are not worried about stripping out the undercoat. However if you fall behind then "recovering" the coat is a huge and time-consuming project. We keep our gang in full show coat and I estimate that they need 2-3 groomings per week, dependant on weather (the wetter the more grooming) and it takes me about 3-4 hours to do a complete grooming - again assuming they have not been left more than 4 or 5 days and they haven't gotten wet in bad weather, knotted from rough-housing around etc. It is a lot of work but I love their full coat looks so much and since I set up the grooming table so I can "watch" TV at the same time, or listen to the stereo the time actually goes by quite quickly. Also remember my boys and girl are well trained and readily accept long sessions on the table and grooming activities anywhere on their bodies without fidgeting. This is just basic grooming, not show finished nor does this time estimate include that required to clip nails, clean ears, scale teeth etc. You've seen, or can view photos of our boys both in the photo gallery and at our website so you can get an idea just what can be accomplished if you set your mind to it. Good luck and don't hesitate to ask any further questions about time, tools etc. Thanks and Cheers Carl |
| I think it also depends on how many tangles you'll tolerate, too. As you get to know your dog's coat, you'll know what will be a mat if you don't take care of it right away and what can kind of wait until you can give it better attention. The texture and abundance of your dog's coat will affect how long you can go between groomings. Removing the bulk of the undercoat will also ease the time in grooming and leave you with a very shaggy dog, too. I thin Clyde out a bit that way and it does keep things from matting up as badly.
I think you catch a groove after awhile. I just trimmed Clyde down to about 8 inches all around (and it's still too much coat) and I do 2 full groomings on the table per week, usually just around two hours each. In between that time, I always have a brush around and I'm taking swipes at him but it isn't dedicated line grooming. I guess if I had up all the heres and theres, Carl's number if probably pretty close to accurate for us, too. The table groomings are kind of nice though. I get him up there, put the TV on and pick a show that is good to listen to more than watch. It goes by pretty fast. Clyde's not a show dog but he's great on the table and is pretty content up there for a few hours without complaint. (I never read Carl's second paragraph all the way through so I went back to make sure I wasn't being redundant. It appears I am, lol. Well, I'll leave the post in anyway since it reaffirms what he said!) |
| to thin out do you use thinning shears... or something else. I was thinking of thinning out Sami... her coat is way thicker then Blues. |
| I've been letting Beaureguard & Genevieve grow out their coats, too. We're about 6 1/2 months into it now and they're getting pretty long. I'd say it's about 6"-7".
I have not thinned out their undercoats in several months. Genny's is much less dense than Beau's naturally, so it takes me less time to groom her and she does not matt as easily. I spend on average about 4-5 hours a week per dog to keep up with this coat length. I'm purposefully NOT using the rake on their undercoats. I'm trying to see if I have the patience and temerity to keep up with the grooming that would be similar to a show coat.  The jury is still out right now.  |
ej wrote: to thin out do you use thinning shears... or something else. I was thinking of thinning out Sami... her coat is way thicker then Blues.
No, no shears. You use a stripping comb or rake. |
| Barkley is 18 months old, and in full coat (undercoat and all). The only trimming we've ever done is around his paws, belly and a little bit of a beard trim here or there. I generally spend about 4-5 hours grooming him, once a week (like Carl's dogs, he's used to long grooming sessions). He's an only dog and doesn't spend a lot of time out-of-doors if it's terribly wet out.
I don't have time to do a full grooming session more than once a week, and I don't like working on him piecemeal. Still, I probably spend about 30 minutes a night going over his coat to keep on top of any major tangles that start to appear. Not actually brushing the whole thing through, but looking for trouble spots. I'd guess that I hit somewhere in the 7-8 hour mark each week, which is right round where Carl's guideline would suggest. I think it bears mentioning that his rule applies only if your dog's coat is generally in good condition, and should be based on the average length of hair, not the longest or shortest points. If the dog is matted, it'll take longer. |
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