Grooming Your Standard Schnauzer

A Guide to Standard Schnauzer Grooming

If you have a Standard Schnauzer strictly as a companion and have no intention of ever showing, you have the option of stripping the coat or clipping it. Stripping is more effort but the stripped coat retains the lovely pepper and salt or glistening black color and the harsh dirt-repelling texture. If you intend to show your Standard Schnauzer, you have no option - your dog must be shown in a stripped coat. The hard, wiry pepper and salt or black coat is one of the outstanding characteristics of the Schnauzer breeds and is therefore a major consideration in the show ring.

EQUIPMENT Stripping Comb - You will need a Stripping Comb if you plan to take the dog into the show ring or if you just want to maintain the nice stripped coat. It is strictly an assistant in the grabbing of hair to be pulled out. Care must be made not to cut the coat with the stripping comb. There are many types but we recommend the McClellan Strippers which come for the left or right handed groomer. Scissors - These are a long-term investment, and cheap ones will soon just fold the hair instead of cutting cleanly through it. Find a good pair at a dog show or order through a pet catalogue. Thinning Shears - Thinning shears are important for blending between clipper and stripped areas. Try the very fine-toothed ones with one solid blade and one serrated blade. Comb - A well-built long metal comb with a 1/2 closely-spaced and 1/2 more widely-spaced teeth is very versatile. Since they tend to get misplaced or lost at show, you can afford to buy several combs. Brushes - The well-equipped Standard Schnauzer exhibitor or will have a stiff bristle brush for keeping the body coat free of dirt, and a smaller somewhat softer brush for thoroughly brushing chalk out of furnishing. And possible a nail or mustache brush for brushing chalk into furnishings. Shampoo - The waterless shampoos (squirt on, foam up, towel off) are very handy around the house for keeping whiskers and legs clean and are almost impossible to do without at dog shows where buckets of rinse water for ordinary shampoos are often hard to come by. You can also use it in a pinch to towel a spot off your white sweater or to wash off the chalk on your clothes before you go in the ring. Chalk - A good powder chalk made for his purpose is the best. Powdered chalk is most readily bought at a dog show booth. Look for chalk for the harsh coat. Hairspray - Hairspray is used to keep the leg furnishing where they belong and the cheap hard to hold brands seem to work just as well as the more expensive one. Do not use hairspray if it is raining. Clippers - Don't try to economize. Cheap clippers are a waste of money. Oster A-5 are used by most groomers with two blades being a must (No. 10 and No. 15) but it is nice to have a No. 7F.

FACE AND EYEBROWS Eyebrows - Comb the eyebrows forward so they fall naturally. (See top row of pictures on the right). Then, looking at the dog head-on (just like you're looking at the pictures on the right), brace your scissors against the bone beside his head and chomp off the corner hairs that protrude past the bone. Then recomb the remaining eyebrows and cut on an angle, your imaginary line running from the outside corner of his eye to the opposite corner of his nose. Scissor between the eyes as shown on the right. The top row of pictures shows how the head should look. The remaining pictures show how to compensate for head lump, short head, and errors in grooming. Don't leave long hairs sticking out from the sides of the dog's head in a puff so he looks like he has the mumps. Trim these hairs off so the head looks long and rectangular. DON'T cut in under the eyes, or you'll get a look as shown in the bottom middle figure on the right instead of a rectangle. Blend short hair on the cheeks gradually into whiskers, so you get a natural look. The head should be rectangular, no indentions, no fluffy puffs. The length and shape of the eyebrows is a personal preference but should not distract from this rectangular look. Clipper the cheeks and the ears as shown on the right. The line at the top should be even with the corner of the eye. The line on the neck should accentuate the arch of the neck. Blend the line between the top of the head which is stripped and the clippered area with the thinning scissors. When clipping a pet, you should strive for this same look.

FEET AND PADS GROOMING Grooming the feet should be done every few weeks for both pets and show dogs. Turn the foot upside down, comb the hair in the direction of the arrows shown in the sketch on the right, and scissor around the edges and across the back of the large pad. Then set the foot down on the table (with the dog standing on it) and do the final scissoring. Remember the foot is supposed to look neat and relatively small with the toes right together. It is NOT supposed to look like a big fat snowshoe. ALWAYS keep your dog's nails clipped short and the hair clipped from between the pads. When you groom the feet, check for mats in between the pads and cut these out with your scissors or your clippers.

SCISSORING FURNISHINGS Scissoring , the final touch, is very important for the final look of the show dog or your family pet. You can have a beautifully stripped dog and mess up his look by sloppy scissoring. Work for a neat simple look. The "blend" areas shown at the right are where you taper gradually the short hair of the body into the longer hair of the legs. Take the funny tuft off short at the front of the elbow with the thinning scissors and neatly scissor backs of the backlegs. Note that the front legs look like a column with a straight line from the floor to the body. Don't leave enough hair to fly in the wind as the dog moves. He is a working dog and you want him to look neat. On the rear leg, the cut in front should accentuate the rear angulation. Be sure there are no tufts off the back of the leg to ruin the line of the angulation. There should be a smooth line to the hocks where the hair is cut at an angle toward the foot. Carefully blend the hair on the rear leg into the tuck up to give a natural line. There should be no break. The hair on the front of the chest (chest fringe) should not be longer than the elbow and taper back and up to the tuck up. The hair should be short in the tuck up area. If your dog is short on leg, keep the chest fringe scissored fairly short. If your dog is very long on leg or has a shallow chest, leave the chest fringe longer but still neatly scissored.

CLIPPED AREAS There are areas that we clip on the show dog: the cheeks, the ears, the tummy, the rear and throat. Throat and cheeks and rear areas are stripped in Europe. Also, in some European countries, the furnishings are stripped. Americans, however, prefer to clipper these areas. We think it looks better. Also, it is a lot of extra work to strip a throat or cheek. The pattern used is often personal preference. You will need to try the patterns we present and see which works best on your dog. How close to clip on cheeks and the throat depends on your dog. A very cheeky, coarse-headed dog would be clippered much shorter (and closer to the show date) than a fine-boned, narrow skulled dog. Leave 1/4" or so of hair behind the eyes and angle to within 1/2-1" of the corner of the mouth. This leaves you some hair to blend in with thinning shears. The pattern for clipping and scissoring the face can be see in the Eyebrows and Faces section above. Clip the belly from the navel to the rear. Use a fine tooth blade so you don't clip off a nipple. On males, be sure to closely trim the sheath, but it is best to neatly scissor hair off the testicles. The idea is to have a very neat dog with no extraneous hair that could catch urine or hold dirt. Trimming the rear, use a No. 8 1/2 or No. 10 blade, scissors, or thinning sheers. If clipped, do it a week or two ahead of time. Using a No. 10 or No 15 blade, clip at least the throat area, or use the lazy man's method and clip down to the breast bone. Use thinning shears and stripping comb to blend clippered area with stripped area. All areas that have been clippered must be blended into the stripped area - the rear, the throat, the neck. You want there to be a smooth transition from the clippered area to the stripped area.

"ROLLING" A COAT "Rolling" is the constant stripping-off of dead hairs to keep the coat in the year-round showing condition (without ever stripping down to the undercoat). The dog thus carries a coat that always consists of about 1/4 hairs beginning to "blow", 1/4 hairs at a good show length, 1/4 hairs approaching show length, and 1/4 hairs just emerging at the skin. The coat can be taken out with either your fingers (which are best anyway when you get down to the fine touches at show time) or a stripping comb. If you can find one, Hauptner makes a stripping comb that is great for rolling a coat. You need to try a few to find one that is good for you. Some people use a stripping stone which is also great for rolling a coat or pulling out the long hairs at show time. If you start with a long bushy coat, it will take you three months to get a nice coat. That is because the hair taken out today will be in show length in 3 months. After that, if you keep up the good work, you'll be able to just keep "rolling" along. Can This Coat Be Rolled? You can probably roll the coat if there are many different lengths of hair or if the dog has a basically short coat with long, loose hairs shedding off the top. If you have a puppy with a slick, glossy, hard coat that clings close to it's body, you have a good candidate for rolling. Every month, strip off about 1/4 of the hairs (the ones that are longest). Remember that the head and neck must be kept shorter than the body. Since the Standard Schnauzer is a two coated dog, you will also need to keep the undercoat raked out. If you have a lot of fluffy soft undercoat, you might want to start by stripping your puppy's top coat, wait 6 weeks and stripping the undercoat, and then try rolling the coat. Puppies often have more undercoat than they will when adults. If your puppy has a fuzzy topcoat - you can try stripping off the fuzz. If there is a nice hard coat under all the fuzz, you're all set to proceed from there with your monthly rolling. If the coat is all fuzz, you will have to wait and see what the new coat looks like. You really do not want to show a dog with a soft fuzzy coat. How often do you work the coat? You must take off 1/4 to 1/3 of the coat every month. You will probably have to work on it weekly while you are actually showing the dog. Read the section on Stripping in Sections to see how to have longer hair in spots to hide faults. You can accomplish this while rolling your dog with practice.

STRIP BY SECTIONS Does Stripping Hurt the Dog? Stripping should never hurt the Standard Schnauzer who has a correct coat. The coat we take out when the dog is stripped is coat that would shed out on another breed. Most Standard Schnauzers tolerate stripping while some actually enjoy it. When to Strip - It is best to start with a blown coat or a puppy coat. A blown coat is one that is loose or long which tends to easily come out of it's own accord. Scheduling - Scheduling depends to some extent on the individual dog, the weather and to some extent to "coat pixies". Some dogs always tend to grow coat at the same rate while others grow coat at different rates at each stripping. That is due, of course, to those awful "coat pixies." As a general rule, you should begin a sectioned stripping 10 - 12 weeks before you want to start showing the dog. Time the interval between sections so that you do the head about 6 weeks before the show(s). If illness or laziness or some such problem strikes and you must wait more than 7 days between sections, at least strip a band an inch or so between sections so there will not be an abrupt difference in coat length in your final product. Remember that in pepper and salts the coloration and shading change as the coat changes in length, so sectioning differences will be more noticeable.
Most coats may last about 3 months before getting too long to be showable. Mark your calendar when you stripped each section and when the coat was showable and when the dog began to blow so you can arrange your stripping schedule the next season. The pictures above right show (A) a simple sectioning for a dog with a fairly fast growing coat, (B) a more complicated pattern, and (C) shows spot stripping to minimize faults such as a dippy back, high rear, or low-set of tail. Those sections marked 1 were stripped first, the sections marked 2 were stripped 7-10 days later, etc. Undercoats - Some people strip to the skin. Most of us, however, just strip the top coat. If there is a long heavy or very soft undercoat, we wait 6 weeks from the first section and then pull the undercoat (there will be a very short top coat coming in after 6-7 weeks). This discourages a heavy undercoat the next stripping and ensures that your dog is never in skin only. If your dog has a short undercoat, then you do not need to strip the undercoat, just be sure to rake the undercoat out periodically. To rake out undercoat, hold the skin taut and rake (comb through the coat with a rake) with the grain of the hair in short, fast strokes. Stripping - In stripping, always pull in the direction in which the hair is growing (usually toward the rear or toward the ground). Hold the skin taut so the hair comes out quickly and without pulling the skin. On most of the body you can grab a large fold of loose skin, but in doing the head you will have to hold an ear or hold the eye brows firmly onto the bridge of the nose to keep the skin taut. Grip the hair between the blade of the stripping comb and your thumb, and pull straight. DO NOT twist your wrist, or you will cut the hair off instead of pulling it out. You may find it easier in some places (head, ears, side of neck) to use just rubber fingers or a stripping stone. If you cut the coat with the stripper, the coat will look like a clippered coat. When stripping in sections, the hair will be longer where the dog was stripped first and shorter where the dog was stripped last. Therefore, we strip last the parts of the dog that grow the fastest or where we want the coat to be short. Also, you can hide faults by filling in dips, etc., by stripping these areas early. Whatever your dog's conformation, remember, that stripping works backwards from the final effect. Remember - strip first where you ultimately want the longest hair. Strip last for the places you want the hair to be the shortest.

CLIPPING YOUR PET The pattern and finished work should be the same on the stripped show dog and the Clippered pet. There is no excuse for "doughnut mustaches" or "Scottie side fringes" or "umbrella eyebrows". So study the scissor work shown above for legs, head, chest, tummy, etc.
A freshly clippered coat, to look neat, is shorter than a good length of stripped show coat because a longer blade (No 5 or No 7) leaves most coats looking like a pack of giant moths ate their way through it. Try doing the nails and feet first, before they get covered with cut hair. On a dog that's not used to the clippers, do the body next, to get him used to the sound and vibration before going on to the head. Clip withthe grain of the hair - it helps prevent skin irritation ("clipper burn"). Don't try to go the whole length of the dog with one stroke: take short overlapping strokes to make a smooth final product. A blade will not clip if it's teeth are clogged up with hair, so keep a nail brush handy for brushing the blade teeth off.

BATHING A good Schnauzer coat tends to repel dirt and water and a good brisk brushing with a stiff brush should take care of normal dirt and dust. An infrequent rubdown (with the grain of the hair) with a slightly damp towel help for dirtier dirts. When all else fails, as when your wretched dog has rolled in something really vile, you will have to bathe him. An all over bath is generally a "no no" because if softens the coat and tends to make it stick out in funny directions, but you now have no choice. So wash in water as cool as possible without bringing on pneumonia and use as little soap or detergent as possible (or none if you can get away with it). When done, towel dry and use the comb or slicker brush to smooth the coat down frequently while it's drying to keep it as smooth as possible. When it's completely dry, hairspray it a couple of times in an attempt to put some texture back into it. There are lots of old Schnauzers who have never had an all-over bath. It's not necessary if you brush and rub frequently. And flea and tick powders and skin preparations are better at controlling vermin in a show coat than are dips and shampoos. Whiskers and leg furnishing do need regular washing to keep them free of food deposits and grease and such. Use a good shampoo and be sure it's rinsed out thoroughly. Be sure to comb whiskers and leg furnishing out carefully before they are washed. Then comb through the hair again when it is dry to make sure everything is OK.

THE BLACK COAT The same basic coat care that applies to pepper and salts also applies to blacks. Some black coats can be roller; some have to be stripped. The coats come in all textures from really hard to really soft. But there are also some basic differences besides that of color. You need to make sure you have your dog's topline and furnishing groomed to present a good outline since a black dog is almost entirely a silhouette. Dust makes a black dog look dull - try a last minute wipe with a chamois or a square of black velvet. Also, if you are living in an area with a bad flea or tick problem, don't powder your black dog within 1 /12 2 weeks before a show. Black undercoat usually turns red when it is exposed to sun and atmosphere so you have to work hard with the undercoat rake to make sure none shows past the top coat. Old hairs can turn either red or grey - so you may have to strip some hairs occasionally that you could just keep scissoring on a pepper and salt, particularly on the hocks, elbows, brisket and possibly throughout the leg furnishings. Urine and chlorine are great for bleaching black hair and turning it red - so avoid wet crates and swimming pools (and ask your male to please learn to urinate without soaking the backs of his front legs). Do your clipper work ahead of time or use a longer cutting blade to avoid the skin showing through a too close clipper job on the throat, neck, or rear.

See our "Publications" page for the SSCA Grooming Guide booklet and Grooming video.

A Guide to Standard Schnauzer Grooming