grooming longhaired doxies?

[Annie's Mom]

My Annie is a 4-year-old rescue from Petfinder.com, and I am besotted with her. She's been to the groomer recently, but he left her fuzzy and unkempt-looking. She was very scared to be left there, even for a few hours. I'd like to learn to groom her myself. Can anyone give me instructions?

[SirOliversMom]

Humm, I'm going to leave this to people with experience with long haired doxies. I used to groom my Shihtzu but that's not the same. Welcome to DBB Annie's Mom!! :wavey: When did you get Annie?

[Tasha's Mom]

Welcome Annie's mom! :wavey: Do you have pics of Annie to share?

As for the grooming, well, I have a smooth, so no advice. A quick brush once a day is plenty for Tasha.

[Me&DappledDuo]

There's a huge variation in long hair coats. My Dutch has a relatively slick 2-3" coat on his body, and long butt, leg, ear, and tail flags. He's extremely easy to groom- and has never been to a professional. I brush him several times a week (which he just loves) and trim his toes, bootie and ears with a good pair or grooming scissors every month or so. That's it! He gets a bath 2-4 times a year- nothing tricky, just suds up, towel off, and brush out.

Dutch has a chocolate coat- which naturally makes it more "fuzz" than silk. But reds and black and tans tend to have very easy silky coats that require only basic trimming with scissors. :)

[yolanda]

Not a lot of advice but I would like to add:

Start with gently brusihing with a soft brush or your fingertips. Get Annie adjsuted to the feel of the brush. One of the realy important things is to keep the hair in the toe pads clipped.

[Juneysmom]

My Trixie needs to be groomed. I am very reluctant to groom her outside of combing her daily or at least every few days. I took her to several groomers before I found one that she just loves. In fact, when we go to this groomer, Trixie is screaming and whining with her high-pitched voice to get that groomer to open the door NOW! So is Juney, but she doesn't really get groomed like Trixie.

I would recommend you look around and interview different groomers and see which ones give you and Annie a warm feeling. If you really want to do your own grooming, then I would suggest that you contact a member of the Dachshund Club in your area and ask them who breeds and shows long-haired dachshunds. Make sure the breeder shows, because they groom their own dogs. Ask one if they would mind showing you how to groom Annie.

[alfina]

Brushing is very important for long coats. It helps to avoid matting and also gets the dead hair out. Which also stimulates new hair growth.

Before giving you longhaired dachsie a bath, always make sure the coat is brushed and not matted. Then after the bath, towel dry and if you have a doggie blow dryer, dry the coat. Human blowdryers are not good for dogs because of the heat they make. It dries out their skin and coat. If your dryer has no heat or low heat setting, then you can try using it.

Paws need to be trimmed around the pads. You can use baby scossors with rounded tips to avoid injuiring the pads. I dremel nails after trimming the paws. Ears need to be cleaned and trimmed.

This site is about Goldens, but you can learn how to trim the hair on the inside of the ear. You can also do the hair on the outside the ears the same way but leaving the coat longer than for Goldens:

http://morningsagegoldens.freeservers.com/Grooming.html

They also have a section on paw trimming.

For shows dachsies also get their necks trimmed. That you would have to watch and learn. Hard to explain. Main thing about long coats is brushing, brushing and brushing.
And, a good conditioner.

[Annie's Mom]

Olga, the golden retriever grooming tutorial was just what I needed. Annie's big brother is a golden named Leo Lebowski, so this site had information I can use for grooming both of them. I already have a pair of thinning scissors, which I normally use for my own cowlicks between professional haircuts, so I can do quite a bit of what's described right away.

I still don't quite know how to post photos, but I'll see if my husband can teach me.

Many thanks to all of you who replied to my question. This is a wonderful site.

[dutchman]

For any of my longhairs Aggie :angel1: , Frank and Tanner I find it best to try and comb them out once or even better twice a week using a very fine tooth comb like a flea comb. If you go too long between combing they can developed matts behind the ears, back for the front legs and pants. Frank is also very prone to bad snarls in his tail if it's not combed. As far as trimming about all I ever do it feet and very rarely some feathers that develop on the rear legs just above the ankle. I have a small par of ball tip scissors that I use for all the trimming. The feet need both tops and bottoms. I many times combine hair trimming with nail clipping. The feather on Frans rear legs can be hand pulled it's more like an undercoat that has come loose but isn't falling out on it's own. If you get minor matts in the hair you may be able to work with your fingers and work them out but if any large matts develop it's generally easiest to just cut them out and much less stress for the dog. As far as baths go one of the great thing about dachshunds is unless they roll in something they seldom need baths.

[Griffins Mom]

After Griffin is groomed (bath and all) his hair is always very puffy. It takes usually 2-3 days for his hair to calm down. I have a friend that grooms him and what they do is a bath, trim the tufts of hair behind his ears, trim the nails back, shave his rear and pee pee area and trim the hair between his paws. I might have more done to him that others, but that is the way I like him. I probably could do it but my friend is a groomer and they do it for free. Hope this tell you a little bit. Hope it helps.