How to Use Finishing Scissors to Groom Your Dog

Video Transcript

"Hi! I am Anne-Marie and today we are learning basic dog grooming. In this series we are going to learn about how to do the finishing scissor work. You need your metal comb and you will need a sharp pair of scissors that are meant for dog grooming and hair cutting. If they are too dull it won’t work. So, here we have Goony, we have already run a clipper comb all over his body to get the length that we desire. Now we just have scissor up all the rough edges. So, we will start taking our comb and combing the hair that we have already cut down nice and flat and start with this face, pull the beard forward, take your scissors and just cut whatever shape you want on your dog. Here we go, a nice little even beard for his visor. A lot of times you can pull this forward like this and Goony has got a lot of cowlicks and curls, we have this sort of pretend they are not there and cut a line and we would think wherever the curls fall so they fall. So, anything that sticks up or looks out of place. Use your imagination and your creative side. Now, for his ears, the scissor loosely along the edges, being very careful not to cut the skin and to make sure you can feel with this hand where the skin ends and just cut there and then to his leg and you can get here, then here and pretty much anywhere you see anything that sticks out that looks funny. Always being careful to know where the skin ends and where the hair starts. Work your way, all the way around, the back legs, it takes practice so be patient you will get better and better every time. Same thing for scissoring the back leg as the front leg will come down. Scissor the heel, so little bit around the toe. Cut across the front. Now on the sides, now the backwards combing here, make sure we have got all the knots out of the tail and cut anything we see that sticks up and straighten out. This is the end of the tail. You can twist and hair… and then just cut a straight little line. Cut off the dead ends just like you would do for yourself, just cut it, lift the tail up and check your length. Scissor any of the hair that you see on the inner thighs and there you have it."