Local pet shop used to clip dogs coats for £20 a go but, alas, they've closed down and there's nowhere else nearby so I'm forced to consider doing the job myself.

Anybody got any advice on how to do it, websites or video's that might be useful etc?

This is the dog in question.
Her coat gets really long and shaggy. I don't want to clip it right back but just to kinda tidy it all up so she doesn't overheat in summer.

I realised that her belly fur was all matted and spent last night carefully trimming it all off and ended up with something I could sell as a wig!

Week, I'm not good at the trimming, I tend to go a bit wonky and end up with a dog who looks like a three year olds been at him!

I use dial a dog wash, they come to you and do a great job, I only get charged a tender for my jr x (no bath) and mums collie x has a bath a cut/blow dry for about £37. Might be worth calling for a quote.

We clipped Duncan ourselves for years one thing to remember it does grow out so if he looks odd don't worry a couple of weeks and he will look ok again


Youtube have a lot of instructional videos for yorkie cutting must have some for other breeds too so worth looking there.

i used to trim our older border collie with clippers, just normal human hair clippers
we put the longest comb we had on it and then followed the the coat in the direction it grew (i.e. she would stand up and we would run the clipper, starting from the centre of her back, following down over her ribs towards the floor)
it didn't clip it to the length of the comb, her fur stayed quite long as we were going with the direction of growth, rather than against it.
and didn't look untidy, it just took off her overly bushy whispy bits

I'm banking on that, along with the old woodworking axiom that "you can always take more off but you can't put it back".


Hmm....

That's probably good advice but, alas, it seems that a spaniel's fur is way too soft to work with a regular trimmer.
I tried it and the fur just slides right through with very little actual clipping going on.

Had a go at it tonight.
I cut away a lot of the matted clumps of winter "down" fur and then, fortunately, when I took her for a walk she jumped in the river and I discovered something useful.
It's much easier to figure out which bits of a dog's fur are long when it's wet.
Attacked her with the scissors in the back yard while she was still soaking and the results are pretty decent.
She gets really stroppy when her fur is clipped so I really just concentrated on the stupidly long bits. I'll give her a couple of days to get over the trauma of it all and then have another go.

This one in Dumfries.

http://www.thegroomingroomdumfries.co.uk/