We all have those days when we are so busy that we don’t have time to be as creative as we would like to be, but still want to bring out the cute personality of the dog that we’re working with.
And what about those owners who want the dog as short as possible to make the grooming last longer in between appointments? Well, here is the tutorial for you!
This quick and easy head tutorial will have you on your way to your next client in just a few minutes—and have the short clients still looking sweet and sassy!
Fig 1) First, start by using your clippers to carefully trim out the long hair in front of the eyes. This can be done with any blade, but we used a #15 on a 5–in–1 clipper. On this dog, we wanted to create a bridge from the corner of one eye to the corner of the other to expose her expression. This helps the haircut last longer on those dogs that go a few months in between grooming.
Fig 2) Continuing with your clipper work, clip out the hair that is right in front of the ear canal. Doing this on your pet clients that are prone to ear infections can also allow for easier air flow into the canal.
Fig 3) Making sure to keep the mouth closed, use your cordless trimmer to clip the hair below the nose in front of the mouth. This helps keep those pesky hairs at bay that like to make their way inside of the mouth.
Fig 4) To speed up the process of creating the head shape, use a guard comb on the top of the head to remove the extra length. We clipped in reverse, starting just beyond the occipital bone and moved forward toward the front of the skull. This can be done with any length that you desire, but for this dog we used a green guard comb.
Fig 5) Using the same guard comb, remove the length from the bottom jaw. By removing the same length from the top of the head and the bottom of the jaw, you can control where the focal point of the head will be, creating balance in your head shape.
Fig 6) Next, comb all of the hair forward above the eyes and scissor the hair from the outside corner of one eye all the way across to the other eye. This will create a round–shaped visor or “bang.” We used a curved shear for this but any shear can be used during this step, entirely dependent upon the desired outcome, as well as the coat texture of the dog you are working on.
Fig 7) Begin cleaning up any flyaway hairs that your clippers missed on the top of the head.
Fig 8) Make sure to pull the ears forward and trim any hair that falls back behind the ear.
Fig 9) Using a thinning shear, trim the hair above the nose and in front of the eye. On this particular pet client, we were more focused on giving the dog a clean and maintenance–free trim, so we removed most of the hair.
Fig 10) This is the triple check step! Use a blender or thinning shear to ensure the top of the ear flows into the top of the head.
Fig 11) Then, lift the ear out of the way and use a curved shear to trim the cheek into a round shape. To achieve this shape, begin scissoring from the muzzle toward the opening of the ear canal. Once that line is set, you can also scissor a rounded shape from the bottom of the cheek toward the top of the head. On a rounded head shape, you want the head to appear round from every angle, therefore you should trim it rounded from every angle. We also trimmed any of the hair that fell forward in front of the ear to give a separation between the cheek and the ear.
Fig 12) Now for the finishing touches! Using thinning shears, scissor over the areas you’ve just trimmed with the clippers and shears. We opted to use thinning shears here because we wanted the face to have a soft, natural appearance when finished. Focus on combing the hair in every direction to help expose any stray hairs that need to be trimmed.
Fig 13) When trimming the bottom of the ear, it helps to push the ears forward from behind. This allows you to see how the dog holds its ears when they’re perked and trim them how they naturally lay. This client prefers long ears so we just cleaned up the scraggly ends.
Fig 14) For the final step, use thinning shears to clean up the short baby hairs around the mouth. Make sure to only do this when the mouth is closed and you have a steady hold on the muzzle to protect the dog from moving while you are trimming so closely to the nose and lips.
And there you have it! A cute head? Check! Low maintenance for your client? Check! A quick style for you? Check! ✂️
