Puppy's First Groom

Typically, I like to do a minimal amount of trimming to lessen stress on the puppy and myself. For a drop-coated breed (such as a shih tzu), I would trim between the pads of the paws, clipping longer hair between the toes. Toenails are clipped usually before the bath. The sanitary area is clipped with a #10 blade with the lay of the hair under the tail around the rectum and on the belly, just to the second nipple (for a female), and just over the tip of the penis on a male puppy. The clippers may be used to clip more cleanly around the penis if needed. Sometimes scissors can do a quicker, less stressful job of cleaning this area. After a gentle bathing process, the puppy is hand-dried and fluff combed. To finish the first groom, I use blunt-tipped curved shears (5") to round off the feet and neaten the appearance of the leg. On the face, I usually trim the hair from the inside corners of the eyes with blunt-tipped shears or if the puppy is calm, I may use a #10 blade on my clippers to sweep out just the corners of the eyes. For a puppy with a longer snout/muzzle, I do not shave down the bridge of the nose. The hair at the corners of the eyes is tamed using a few snips with thinning shears. I then comb forward all of the bangs and trim the visor so that the hair will not fall in the eyes of the puppy. If a topknot (bow) is requested, the visor is not trimmed. Excess hair that doesn't fit in the topknot will be left out, and when the hair has grown enough, it will be placed in the topknot bow/barret.

For drop-coated breeds, I prefer to do a 'face, feet, & tail' groom as described above as it generally is less stressful to both puppy and groomer. Also, doing an all-over scissor trim on a shih tzu puppy can have mixed results - and there is no guarantee even the best groomer can finish a haircut on a puppy who doesn't wish to be groomed!

Here is the 'first haircut' for PIPSQUEAK, my 13wk old shih tzu puppy. I have completed the bath and comb-out and did not take pictures of this process. What follows is pictures of the 'haircutting'. I hope you all enjoy!