Grooming
and Showing the Irish Wolfhound -
Robert Hunter
Irish
Wolfhond Clubs in Australia
With thanks to John Briggs and Frans De Ridder for their help for the English version.
Before going into detail about the coat of an Irish Wolfhound, let's talk about the different kind of coats that different breeds can have.
There are 2 main groups of coats:
1) Breeds with a single coat (Great Dane, Poodle)
2) Breeds with a double coat (Irish Wolfhound, German shepherd, Labrador)
Most of the recognized breeds have a double coat.
The double coats can be classified in subgroups:
for such a coat the underlying wool is taken away and the outer coat remains
dogs with longhair will loose the underlying wool during the moulting season and this will be combed out by the owner.
the Irish Wolfhound has a double coat which includes outer lying rough hair and underlying softer hair. The outer lying rough hair is trimmed 2 to 4 times a year. The underlying soft coat can come loose and has to be combed out.
For all three coat types, a clipper is out of the question.
The use of a clipper for those kinds of coats has some unwanted consequences: the coat becomes dull and dusty, the hairs that normally will fall out, will bed in the coat and will result in a thicker coat. The dog will experience this as an irritation and will have itching all over his body.
A sheared coat needs about 2 to 3 years to recover and is very painful for the dog. The groomer has to remove all the hair that was bedded in the coat after the shearing.
When you take your dog to a grooming parlour, be sure that the groomer knows how to take care about the coat of your Irish Wolfhound. Because the Irish Wolfhound is not such a popular dog, it is most likely that the groomer does not have a pluck scheme in house. He or she can probably pluck your dog and that is already something but if the dog is plucked according to the requirements of the breed standard is another question.
Therefore you will find in this article a trimming scheme for the Irish Wolfhound. You can take it with you to the dog trim shop or you can start yourself with it.
Some amongst you have already assisted at a workshop on "grooming", organised by our club. We will organise such days again in the future. We hope that a lot of interested members will be there.
If you have questions concerning the plucking of an Irish Wolfhound, you should contact the breeder of your dog. He or she will very helpful.
Have a lot of success with the coat care of your Irish Wolfhound.
Even if your Irish Wolfhound is not a real show dog, he/she deserves to look nice, well cared and to look as typical as possible, in brief as worthy as an Irish Wolfhound.
You have to trim the coat with your fingers. You take a tuft of hair between the thumb and the forefinger and pull the hair out of the coat in the direction of the hair growth while you turn your wrist anticlockwise if you are left handed. You turn your wrist clockwise when you are right handed.
On difficult places (like neck, elbows), you may use a trim knife but one that is not sharp. If your dog has a correct coat, it is till better to trim the neck and elbows manual. Keep in mind: the easiest way for you is not always the best for the dog.
The furnishing (beard and eyebrows) are not touched and should be rich.
The ears should be plucked bald as a mouse skin.
On the top of the head, the hairs should be short to fit fluently into the neckline.
The cheeks will be trimmed evenly short, to fit into correct proportions with the neck.
From the underjaw to the breastbone, you trim the coat short. This will pronounce the forebreast. The neck will also be plucked short on such a way that it forms a nice fluent line with the back of the dog. After some time, plucking will be easier.
The back and the flanks have to be trimmed evenly - length from 5 to 6 cm.
The underline should be lifted up. So between the legs behind till the chest you trim everything in a flowing line.
At the under side of the ribs you trim the superfluous unequal hairs. Take care that the breast still looks deep.
The fore breast should remain long. Only the spiky hairs are plucked.
If your dog shows not enough breast, you can, at the foreside of the leg and at the height of the elbow, trim the hair of the breast in a light bended horizontal line. This will give more volume to the coat and the breast will look more pronounced.
The forelegs: trim the spiky hairs out of the flags (long hair between the elbow and the pasterns). Bring all the other hair to the same length.
The tufts at the elbow should be very short.
The hindquarters: the hair on the thighs should be the same length as the hair on the body. From the root of the tail to the hocks, the hair at the backside should be trimmed away. From the hocks till the feet, you trim the flags into equal length. At the front (of the hindquarters), you do the same.
The feet: at the top of the feet, the hair should be short. Between the toes at the under side of the feet, every hair has to be trimmed so that no stones, ice or twigs could remain. We want nice round feet: here you can use scissors to remove all prominent hair.
The nails: the nails should be cut with nail clippers. They are short enough when they do not touch the ground when the dog stands up. Take care not to touch the "living" part of the nail.
The tail: the hair has to be trimmed into equal length and from the flag the unequal hair has to be removed. The tail should look full and long.
Genitals and anus: if you have clippers, you can shave the hair around the anus (about the size of a slice of cucumber). You have to cut off the hair around the vagina for the bitches and around the penis for the dogs so that the intimate spots remain clean.
Than you put away the clipper and the scissors while an Irish Wolfhound should not be clipped.
If you are clipping the coat of a rough haired breed, the ripe hairs will fix themselves again in the skin and makes it difficult that new hair will grow again. The coat will become thicker, fluffy, dull, dead and will be very annoying for the dog.
Later on, you can give your dog a weekly comb time. In this way you are removing a lot of dead hair, your treasure looks well cared and you will find less hair in the house.
Do not forget the ears: the cleaning of the ears is as follows:
- you dribble an ear cleaning emulsion like Epi-Otic, in the ear. Than you turn a wet cleaning tissue around your finger. You may enter the inner ear only with the finger and not too deep.
Then you clean the ear flap with a wet cleaning tissue.
So, now your Irish Wolfhound looks fantastic. The scissors and the clipper should be used sparingly because our Iris Wolfhound is trimmed - he has a double coat (rough hair with a woollen undercoat) and a rough coat.
Have a lot of fun with your first attempt.
