I start usually behind the base of the skull and I start to strip the coat by pulling the hairs towards me, away from the actual body of the dog. This is to make it comfortable for the dog because if you were to pull the hair in the opposite direction, you’d find it would give the dog a certain amount of pain but doing it in this way, you will find that the dog shouldn’t have any discomfort or whatsoever.
So, having started doing this and you do have to remember that you want the coat to be dead enough before you start. And this of course means that you need to check that the coat is actually dead enough to strip. And the way to do this is to look at it and see that the coat falls into bits and pieces and actually makes aligned down the back of the neck and then down the back where it falls apart.
Now, having assured yourself that it is actually dead, you take the tips of the hairs between your thumb and the end of the stripping knife, the rounded end in this case because there are no serrated teeth on this end. And that does give you a knife to pull the fur. You continue down the back of the neck in this way until you have removed all of the old dead surface coat and leave the thick soft undercoat below.
The other way of stripping out is to use the finger and thumb, as I’m doing now just to show you that it can be done with this method. Some people do prefer it. It does give a very neat finished look to the coat.
Now, I'm working well down the back leg towards the hawk and I now start t leave a little with the old coat in because otherwise you get a very stripped, bold look to the legs and it doesn’t look quite very attractive to the eye and of course if you are showing a dog, you need to have certain amount of furnishings left on to use for another time after the new coat has grown.
Now, I'm going to now work to the side of the dog. Pulling the coat down over the ribs and this can be rather a tricky area. I should go lower down the ribs. You have to judge how much coat to leave in and just where to leave it. As a general rule of thumb, I would say you would need to work down the ribs to the point where the coat actually starts to disappear underneath the brisket of the dog.
What I mean by the brisket is, underneath the dog, under the ribs and the tummy and you grip the skin of the dog and you pull it up and slightly over the top of the back, this not only pulls the coat up that you wish to strip but it also is much more comfortable for the dog. It tightens the skin which makes it much easier to pull the hairs out.
Now, having finished the rib, I then work from behind the ear, down the side of the neck and the shoulders. At this point, you do have to remember that if you are stripping a show dog you have to leave the rough on, that is the area of long coat that grows from just behind the ear, around the chest of the dog. Now, we leave this on a show dog because it is required by a standard.
So, if you pull the hair forward, clasp it under the fingers of your left hand, then you don’t pull it out by mistake. You pull all the long coat to the bottom of the shoulder blade, and to the top take it off all on the top of the arm.
And this can be an area which is a little bit uncomfortable for the dog. So, I'm going to pick the leg up to do and that way I'm actually pulling the skin from behind the elbow around to the inside of the armpit. Again, this tightens the skin which makes it much more comfortable for the dog to have the coat pulled. As you can see, she’s not fidgeting and complaining about it so much now.
I'm taking all the long hair off just at the top of the arm, removing all the long straggly ends so that what you're left with are just some long hairs on the elbow, that’s the little joint here on the elbow itself. Now these hairs, I will pull again with my finger and thumb, if I say yes, that is a more delicate area to pull and to get all the hairs out with the knife, its not easy.
So, I'm going to pick this leg up again and I will have to use the knife just on the back hair where she finds it extremely uncomfortable. And remove all the longest hairs. Now, I'm going to start on the head and I'll pull the fur forward in the stop area, that's the area between the eyes, pull that forward because you don’t want to pull all of that out. And then I put my thumb over it in order to prevent myself pulling it out in aggressively. And then you start just above the eyes and remove all the long dead coat on from the top of the head.
You work that quite quickly as long as the coat is dead enough right back to the base of the skull where you started originally. Now, having removed all the long coat between an area from the top corner of the eye to the top corner of the ear and the same for the other side, you remove all the long coat off the top of the skull.
The old hairs that are left, you just remove with finger and thumb as I did on previous parts of the body. And then, you look at the area of coat that has been left on and you remove any of the very long streaky ends that are sticking out such as just over the eye here. And this area, you have a little bit careful of and remember that might be a little bit sensitive for the dog.
Remove all the straggly ends but you leave a certain amount of coat on the side of the skull because your standard does require the skull to be broad and leaving some coat in here does emphasize the width of the skull.
Now, we move on to the ear which in this particular case is fairly free of long hairs but some dogs do carry a great deal of hair on the ears. So, we take the end of the ear with one hand and remove any of the long hairs which are sticking out or sticking up on the back of the ear. And turning the ear inside out, you pull all the long hairs just on the inside there. This can be a little bit uncomfortable for the dog on occasions but it is one of those things that probably is no more uncomfortable than ladies who pluck their eyebrows.
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