Grooming Tilda the Aussie

Yesterday I groomed Tilda. It took me over an hour to groom her. The way I groom her is called "Stripping", and it is done with tools called stripping knives. You use two of these tools, one is a coarse stripper and the other is a fine stripper. The way is works is that it pulls all the dead hair out of the Aussie. Pulling dead hair out of the Aussie sounds like they should shed, but Australian Terriers do not shed (which is nice). If you would not strip an Australian Terrier their hair would just get all matted and would become long, which would be a big mess, you might even have to shave the dog. It takes a little while to groom an Aussie. As I said it took me over a hour and I maybe could have groomed her longer.

The first thing you want to do is find a place to do the grooming. Then, before you begin stripping your Aussie Terrier you want to brush her. After you are done brushing, you can begin stripping. You only use a scissors in certain spots. The only time I used a scissors on Tilda yesterday was to clip out a little matted area. Other places I have used a scissors is around the eyes (I think it might be kind of hard to strip her by the eyes), her ears but I now use a stripper ( the time I clipped her ears was before we had the stripping tools), her back end (it may hurt a dog if you strip them there), and, I haven't done it, but I have read you can clip their belly hairs. I have also clipped the tail, but I stripped it a little bit yesterday and I have also clipped up some other areas but that was before we had the stripping tools.

Make sure you are pulling the way the hair lays. In other words, if you pull up on the Aussies hair, it will grow up. You don't need the stripping tools to groom an Aussie Terrier, you can use your hands.

 

 The above pictures are of Tilda before she was groomed.

This is a picture of Tilda after she was groomed. 

This is a picture of all the hair I pulled out of Tilda. 

  

The two above pictures are the stripping knives.

Today was Tilda's nail clipping day. The results: it went really good! I didn't need my sister to help. I had continued to work with Tilda over the past days pretending to clip her nails so that had helped.I did clip a nail too short, but it didn't seem to bother Tilda. She is taking treats from me again too. Practice makes perfect.