? about grooming you own dogs

[Lanshark]

I have 2 golden retrievers that we keep shaved down most of the year because of excessive shedding. Max and Jake stay cooler and happier and so do I. We take them to a groomer to have this done but it gets expensive. Has anyone done this themselves. Both have extremely thick undercoats. I was thinking I could get them both groomed to start with and then get a set of clippers to keep it up. What kind of clippers do you recommend and what kind of blade? I don't want to chance cutting them but it costs my about $60 apiece to have them shaved and I need to do this at least 3-4 times yearly.

 

[tripletvan]

Yep ! Been there do that! I have or should I say had two goldens one recently passed away at 16 and the other is 20 months, wanna talk hair! Our older golden is where we learned lessons the hard way, she was the tomboy who loved water and MUD! I did eveything and paid through my nose.Rudi actually developed a fungus on her coat due to never drying off and had to be shaved so closely she lookded as though she were a lab, Sallie the baby has been trained pretty well to let us groom her and trim her on a more routine basis.
A good sharp trimmer.Oster, the cordless model, which mine is called the Sculptor,so you can move as they squirm.You will need spacers also, start with the biggest first and then work your way down if necessary so start with the 1/2 inch after you cut the longer hair with the scissors.make sure the motor is strong enough, and scissors ( not the ones in the junk drawer) are necessary. Just keep doing it.
Besides I had to save money for WDW! Hope this helps.

 

[tripletvan]

Forgot, the trimmers ran us around $100

 

[Lanshark]

Tripletvan

Thanks a bunch. I have one old boy whose almost 13 and a 2 year old. Max, the old boy, is extremely calm but Jake is definitely squirmy. Are there guards on the blades so you can't nick them? I would have never though of a cordless but it makes perfect sense. I'll check it out.

 

[tripletvan]

the guard goes over the blades and the sculptor comes with a blade it also is color coded so that you can figure out which blades will work with your trimmer. So my trimmer accepts only blue packaged blades. The spacers are important so you don't hack the poor baby which is why I said use the largest spacers first. We have has a couple of uneven patches from time to time but they get over it.