Grooming a small dog at home

Small dogs get groomed more than any other size of dog, and their owners are the most likely to give up on doing it themselves.

That is not a coincidence. Nearly all the advice, and most of the equipment, is written for a labrador standing patiently on a table. Very little of it survives contact with a six kilo terrier who has opinions.

They are not being difficult, they are being handled wrongly

A small dog experiences grooming as being held in place by something enormous. The same restraint that a big dog barely notices is, at that scale, complete immobilisation.

The fix is counterintuitive: hold them less.

Most small dogs settle far better sitting on a towel on your lap, or on a sofa beside you, than they do being held still on a table. You lose a little control and you gain a dog who is not spending the whole session trying to get free.

Height, not size, is the problem

The reason groomers use tables is their own back, not the dog. If you groom a small dog on the floor you will be bent double, you will get uncomfortable, you will rush, and the dog will notice you rushing.

Put them on a worktop, a table, or the arm of a sofa with a towel under them. Get the dog to your elbow height and the whole job becomes easier. Something non slip underneath is not optional at this size, because a small dog who slips once will remember it.

Little and often beats a full groom

A small dog can be completely brushed out in about four minutes. That is the entire advantage of a small dog and hardly anyone uses it.

Four minutes daily, or every other day, means you never meet a mat. Owners who groom small dogs once a fortnight are not doing less work, they are doing the same work in worse conditions, on a coat that has already tangled.

The places that actually mat

On a small dog, mats form in a predictable set of places, and none of them are the back that everyone brushes:

• Behind and under the ears
• The armpits
• The chest, between the front legs
• The back of the thighs
• Around the collar

Brush those five places and you have prevented ninety per cent of the mats. The back looks like the coat and is almost never the problem.

Coat type decides everything

“Small dog” is not a coat type, and the routine is not the same.

Curly, so poodles, bichons, cockapoos. Grows continuously, mats readily, needs brushing every day or two down to the skin and a clip every six to eight weeks. This is the highest maintenance coat there is.

Wiry, so westies, cairns, scotties. Traditionally hand stripped rather than clipped. Clipping is fine and much easier, but it softens the coat over time and fades the colour. Worth knowing before you start rather than after.

Double coated, so pomeranians, small huskies. Never shave one. The undercoat regrows and the topcoat may not, and it is the topcoat that keeps sun and heat off. Deshed instead, thoroughly, twice a year.

Silky, so yorkies, maltese. Tangles rather than mats, mostly around the face and ears. A comb rather than a brush, and short daily attention.

The face is a separate job

Almost every small dog needs the hair around their eyes managed, and it is the one part where owners are right to be nervous.

Use blunt nosed scissors. Rest the hand holding them against the dog’s head so that if the dog moves, your hand moves with them rather than staying still while the dog moves onto the blades. Cut with the points aimed away from the eye, never toward it.

If you are not confident, this specific job is worth paying someone for, even if you do everything else yourself.

What this is worth

A small dog on a six week grooming cycle is a meaningful annual cost, and the majority of what you are paying for is a bath, a brush out and a nail trim.

Doing the maintenance at home and keeping the groomer for the clip is the version of this that most people can actually sustain. You are not trying to replace the groomer. You are trying to stop paying them to brush a dog you could have brushed in four minutes.