Dog Groomer, Hand Stripping
 

I have a standard Schnauzer and am looking for recommendations for a Groomer that does hand stripping in the Wolfeboro area. Any recommendations welcome.

hand stripping any animal is cruel!!:eek: imagine covering ur body in duct tape and tearing it off!! and no...your pet does not get used to it! good luck

Duct tape??
 

I Google'd "hand stripping" since the comment about duct tape had me confused. I always thought hand stripping meant exactly what it says - stripping the longer hairs by hand. Here is what I found:

Does It Hurt?
Hand-stripping dogs should never be painful. If the coat is ready for stripping, it will come out very easily with just a gentle tug.

Dogs that are hand stripped regularly don't mind the process. However, if a dog has been clipped her entire life and you suddenly begin to hand strip her coat, it will not pull out as easily and you may have great difficulty getting the coat into shape. It's always best to start stripping a dog's coat from puppyhood.

http://www.netplaces.com/dog-groomin.../stripping.htm

That being said, I can imagine that it could be uncomfortable if a dog isn't used to it or it is not done by a real Pro that is very experienced.

Hand stripping is NOT cruel. It is NOT painful. I have had Airedale Terriers now since the early 70's and I have always hand stripped them.

Right now I have one 4 year old male (he is my sixth Airedale) and I have hand stripped him since he was 5 months old. When he sees me getting out the grooming equipment he jumps up onto the grooming table right away. He loves to be groomed. Hand stripping will leave your dog with a healthy coat with no dead hair.

All hard coated terriers should be hand stripped. If you do not hand strip them their hair will grow out to around 3 inches long and then die. This length varies from dog to dog according to how hard their coat is to begin with. The same holds true for all three varieties of Schnauzers

Then when it reaches it's max length and you use a clipper on them, you are leaving the dead hair still in the skin. This results in the coat having a very dull muted color and being very soft. In the case of Airedales which are black and tan, the black will look greyish and the tan which should be a deep rich color will look very, very light.

I would suggest that you invest in a Mars Coat King, you can read about them here: http://www.cherrybrook.com/blog/inde...Mars-Coat-King They are a great tool for coat maintenance. They effortlessly muck out all the dead hair and it IS painless to the dog.

Below are three pictures of Airedale Terriers. The first show a dog which was not hand stripped. The second shows a hand stripped example, note the nice deep rich color in the 2nd image and the last shows a group of Airedales. The one that was not hand stripped is very easy to spot.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h3...redale-non.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h3...lestripped.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h3...dale1/trio.jpg

Apparently the non hair stripped dog smells better though!:laugh:

been in the animal industry for 20 years. 4 years of veterinary medicine and 20yrs grooming, sorry guys, dogs do not get used to being hand stripped. it is no different than you waxing or plucking yourself!! not a happy thing for a pet!! this is a vanity thing for the pet owner not an essential thing for the pet to have done. cruel and unnecessary:eek:

Sometime within "4 years of veterinary medicine" you should have learned the difference between canine and human epidermis. Dogs have far fewer pain receptors in their epidermis than humans do. Much like a canines olfactory senses are 200 times more acute than our own, so it is with a humans skin sensitivity compared to a dogs. It is far more acute for us. Comparing hand stripping a dog to "waxing or plucking hair from a human" is a terrible analogy. It is just plain wrong.

Have you ever taken your dog to the vet for an inoculation and the vet grabs a bunch of skin on the dog's back and slides the needle in and the dog does not even blink? That is because they do not have the same volume of pain receptors in their epidermis as a human; in fact they have very few.

Also, sometime within "20 years of dog grooming" you should have learned that when a dog's hair grows it grows in bundles. When a human hair develops it grows as a solitary hair and continues to grow unlike dog's hair which grows in cycles. When dog hair reaches a certain length determined by the individual dog's genetic makeup, it stops growing, then dies. That's when shedding begins.

Hard coated terriers and Schnauzers do not shed. Like all dogs their hair grows to a certain length and dies, The difference is that with hard coated terriers and Schnauzers if you clip them when their coat is blown (dead hair) you leave all of the dead hair in the epidermis.

I apologize if I seem angry, I am not. It is just that I am very passionate about my animals and it upsets me when someone disseminates information that is just plain wrong regarding grooming.

Hand stripping a dog puts no more stress on the animal than brushing it or combing it and far less than brushing or combing a dog that is matted.

Again, I have been hand stripping Airedales for many, many years and I would invite anybody who doubts what I say regarding the level of stress or discomfort that it puts on a dog to come and watch me groom my 4 year old male. Again, when he knows it's time to be groomed he will jump up on the table on his own and stay there without a noose for the entire session which is usually just under 2 hours. It is not painful, mean or cruel and you can say it is all you want but it does not make it so. Every Airedale I have ever owned looked forward to the grooming because it was a pleasurable experience done by a groomer (me:)) that knew what he was doing.

no disrespect my friend, however with the hads on experience that i have and with a 4 year college education in veterinary science i beg to differ. your airedale may tolerate it, key word, "tolerate" , but most animals do not enjoy this process.

My 4 years of college taught me how to spell and where to use capital letters.:laugh:

Bottom Line
 

I take it that no one has a helpful suggestion for a Groomer in response to the original question. Enjoy the debate.

omg....*hands, whoops. typing error. lmao.

I'm not vet. or a groomer, however, we have a 11 month old springer spaniel and have been stripping him since he was 5 months old and he loves it. As soon as he sees the stripping tool he runs over and sits in front of us with his tail wagging.

Did you try going to the SSCA website? http://www.standardschnauzer.org/

You should be able to get a referral for your area from there.

You could also go to the AKC website at http://www.akc.org/breederinfo/breeder_search.cfm or try directly contacting Catherine Lord at (201) 825-0462 as she is the person in charge of breeder referrals for the SSCA. I am sure she could provide you with a contact.

Are you still in contact with the breeder who sold you the dog? If so, ask there.

There are tons of "professional" dog groomers out there, but few that are competent at hand stripping. As I do my own, the only breeder/groomer that I know of in NH is Jay Atwood of Woodcrest Kennels in Orford, NH, You can reach Jay at 603-353-4720 and perhaps he could refer you to someone in your area.