By Dawn Omboy
This is Toby, a cute mini Poodle I introduced you to in a previous article. I thought you might like to see how this style will transition into the next trim style.
On the first visit after Toby’s sweater style, the dye pattern was still visible on his coat so I decided to concentrate on modifying the head style with a few changes to give Toby a new look. On the second visit, a month later, I was able to cut down his body close and get rid of any evidence of his former jacket design.
I re–dyed the dark brown on his feet and the bottom part of his ears to give a nice pop of contrasting colors. I will go into more detail about the ears, as this is an important part of the total new look.
Fig 1 & 2) To give Toby the appearance of fuller ears without too much bulk on his face, I clipped out part of the cheeks and throat with a #5 blade, leaving about a finger width of long hair in front of the ear opening to give the ear more fullness, as shown. I also left hair on his chin to be able to shape his cute little face and to have a natural handle to hold onto while working on his head.
Fig 3) Starting with my small curved shear, I shaped the mustache, working from the bottom up. Keep in mind that you want the expression to appear “happy” so try to always work with your shears pointed up in this area and make the shape into a nice, rounded muzzle that appears to be smiling.
Fig 4) Next I used a longer curved shear to create the outer circle of the head shape, from the outer edges of the mustache to behind the corner of the eyes. I then repeated this on the other side of the face.
Fig 5) I then trimmed over the top of the head and in front of the eyes, but angled the blades of my shears slightly out to give a nice, rounded and soft expression.
Fig 6) Next I scissored out the space between the ears on the top of his head, giving Toby nice, fluffy ears.
Fig 7) Then to make this head style a bit more dramatic, I double bobbed his ears by making the first cut from the jawline at an angle toward the top of the backside of the ear with a straight shear.
Fig 8) I made the second cut at the bottom of the ear to match the angle of the top part. Be careful not to cut into the ear leather.
This a cute and modern new look for Toby and he was still wearing the dyed jacket from his previous groom a month earlier. On his next visit, four weeks later, the dyed pattern was grown out enough to clip it all away, leaving Toby with a close cut body and Asian teddy style legs, enhanced with brown bells at the bottom of the legs.
I brought this all together by adding brown dye to the bottom layer of the ear bob. To make this a bit more fun, I also dyed the top layer of the ear bob purple. And once again, Toby’s mom was pleasantly surprised. 