Wet Clipping

A heavily matted dog came to me today to be groomed which gave me an opportunity to try a different way of wet clipping.  In the past, I would spend outrages amount of time cutting heavily matted dogs with scissors little pieces at a time.  Later I heard about wet clipping so tried it after a shampoo and rinse with good success but today after I shampooed and rinsed, I worked in a good dose of conditioner but didn't rinse it out.  This technique was extremely fast with no pain to the dog even on the legs where there was no space between the skin and the matts!  I am impressed.  I took a few pictures to share:

That clump of hair under the chin is a solid mat.
Though the body hair tips weren't matted, the body was heavily matted close to the skin. 

Hair on ears and ear tips matted solid to the skin.

Legs, feet, and toes matted to the skin                                                                                                                                

Here, she has been shampooed, rinsed, then conditioner worked in the best I could but I didn't rinse the conditioner out.  I put the dripping wet, conditioned haired dog on a towel on my grooming table.  Yes, dripping wet.  Then with a #10 blade I started clipping.  The wet hair didn't stick to the blades and my blades didn't run hot.  Dog was clipped down in 20 minutes.

Here she is with all mats clipped off.  I put her back in the tub and shampooed her again and worked what mats I could apart on her tail.

Naked but clean, flea free, and able to move around freely without the restriction that matted hair can cause.  She seem to enjoy having me touch her.

I strongly suggested to the owner to come back to me in a couple of months and let me help her to maintain the dog's hair and we would be able to keep hair on her dog  .... without the mats.

With a heavily matted dog, wet clipping with conditioner on the hair is the way to go for speed but more importantly, for the comfort and safety of the dog.

Karen De