Westie Clipping at Home
One of the best things about owning a West Highland Terrier is their unique look. Nearly everyone who watches TV recognizes the dog from the Ceasar commercial. Some even say: Oh, its Maggie. A real demonstration of the power of media, if nothing else.
Keeping the unique Westie look is a continuous struggle. You have to take your dog in to the groomers every six weeks or so, or learn to do it yourself. Westie clipping isn’t that hard, if you have a good set of tools and your mistakes grow back anyway, so there’s no need to be timid.
The tools you will need to clip your Westie at home are:
- A good set of two speed clippers. You need the wide blade model. You also need a 7 blade and a 10 blade. Most clippers come with a 10 blade, so you’ll need to purchase a 7 blade as well.
- A pair of curved dog grooming scissors. These are not absolutely necessary, but the curved blade makes it much easier to trim the longer hair into nice curves and avoid those unsightly straight lines.
The last thing you need is knowledge of what to do. The easiest way to acquire this knowledge nowadays is to purchase an instructional DVD. Books work as well, but actually watching the motions of a skilled groomer in a video is much easier than trying to follow instructions in a book.
Learning to groom your West Highland dog yourself is well worth doing. It will also save you money in the long run. The physical equipment will cost you in the neighborhood of $200, so it will take you about six months to recoup your investment. That figure is assuming you have your dog clipped every six weeks and it costs you fifty bucks a pop.
Who knows, once you get good at Westie clipping you might even start doing other peoples dogs and pick up a little extra pocket money. So, if clipping your dog yourself appeals to you, buy the gear, watch the DVD and get started. If the first one or two times are a bit rough, your dog will forgive you, I promise.