By Dawn Omboy
Sometimes those short haircuts can be a little tricky to dress up after a shavedown, so here is a quick and easy little style that can be modified for most any breed trim – style short or not. This neat little design was introduced by Rachelle McGinnis, owner of K-9 Design in Stratford, Missouri. We will call it simply, “The Scarf” and it can be done in a variety of shapes and colors to include anything from patterns and temporary color to more vibrant permanent colors, depending on the client and situation.
To begin this, we want to leave a fluffy collar of hair covering the base of the neck, usually from the withers around to the front on the chest so it creates a nice circle of hair to work with (Fig 1).
Then when cutting down the body hair, leave enough to create the rest of the scarf on the dogs back. You should have two thick lines of hair longer than the length you are cutting your dog down to (Fig 2).
Leaving this part longer, finish the groom on your dog then you can go back to the scarf and shape it with your scissors. It is fun to leave the hair rough at the ends to create the illusion of the tasseled end of your scarf. As to how to decorate your scarf; it is entirely up to you. On my own dogs, I love temporary colors that can be changed regularly. The draw back to this is the colors are not going to be as vibrant as a more semi-permanent color product would be.
Here are a few examples of how the scarf can be done with temporary airbrush ink. In Figure 3, before airbrushing, I gave it a light layer of hairspray to hold the coat in place so I could get my design drawn on and the air would not blow the hair around while I was working.
In Figure 4, I also used hairspray to stiffen the topknot so I could then airbrush a hat along with the scarf. For Figure 5, I wanted to show you what this guy looks like after 3 weeks at home with the client. A good bath and we are ready for a new scarf design!
But if you want something a bit longer lasting, you can set in some semi-permanent color that will hold for months (Fig 6). Lindsey Dicken also did this with her co-workers Bichon (Fig 7). I would like to thank Rachelle for sharing her cute design and would love to see all the variations you guys come up with. Let’s keep making the world more colorful, one dog at a time!
— Dawn Omboy, Queen of Color