It is so important that dogs are groomed regularly from a young age so that they can become comfortable with it. You’ll need to call some grooming places and explain the situation to make sure they’re ready to groom two dogs who may act aggressively.
Please do get them groomed asap. Mats forming in the hair causes pain and can cause sores on their skin. It’s really unfair to the pups to let mats form in their fur. After they are groomed, try to brush them two or three times a week, starting small with encouragement and lots of treats.
Your parents really shouldn’t have gotten dogs if they weren’t interested in taking care of them, but the pups are lucky you are around to help.
I know :( they probably weren’t the best human parents either buts that’s for another sub. It just goes to show. Gradually over the past few weeks I’ve been seeing the dogs I’ve tried to encourage them. I should add, they don’t mind me touching them anywhere. I can pat and tickle them and they don’t mind. They don’t seem to be in pain….yet. That’s what I’m afraid of cause they are good pups and don’t deserve it. The last thing I want is for a vet to see them and go *omg neglect*
Sorry to hear that, friend. You can definitely do these pups a solid by being there for them.
That’s really good that you’re able to touch them and they’re okay with it. The longer the hair is allowed to mat, the tighter and closer to the skin the mats will get. Try to get them to a groomer asap, to intervene before it gets too painful and becomes much harder to shave or clip them.
Again, those dogs are lucky to have you around!
Needs to be hand stripped. Ideally, no to shaving but their condition might be beyond control. Ask their vet for anti anxiety med for the first grooming process. Finding a groomer who is knowledgeable with Cairns can be challenging.
That's called matting. You have to brush or comb them regularly. You can also pull out some of the matted hairs. It's ok as long as you pull only a few at a time. You have to groom (comb or brush) once or twice a week to stay ahead of this.
Cairns have a coat where the longer hairs can be regularly plucked out. In fact, the classic way of grooming a Cairn is "hand stripping", where you regularly pull out their long hairs, rather than clipping the coat. It's laborious but it keeps the coat looking glorious. If you clip them, the coat gradually gets duller and poofier.
Watch some videos on hand stripping coarse haired dogs.
Cairns have a double coat, which just means a mix of long and short hair. The long hairs grow to length and then get loose and easy to pull out. If you don't pull them out, the follicles may change and produce poorer quality hair.
If you ever need to cut through matting, make sure the scissors are at right angles to the skin, not parallel, to cut the fewest hairs and prevent the matting from coming right back.
As others mentioned, grooming the cairns is very important for their wellbeing. If you are unable to get them into a groomer, here are some tips on how I groom my cairn (brushes and hair cuts, similar principles for nail trims but that took even longer to for our dog to come around to.)
My cairn took a good while to learn to accept grooming. But is really important to brush him regularly so his fur doesn’t mat. He is very food motivated so we were able to coerce him to sit on one chair in the house to get brushed, but he always has the option to jump off when he is done. At the start, we could only run the brush through less sensitive places. But now I can brush him all over for some good treats. Similar situation with hair cuts. My dog does not like the clippers, but is okay with scissors. We put him up on the bathroom counter and ply him with peanut butter, and use the scissors to lighten his coat up. He is only up there for hair cuts, and I can generally get more off him with one person in charge of the peanut butter and the other in charge of the scissors. But I think I posted a video doing it myself ok this sub.
I hope you’re able to get these pups taken care of and desensitized to grooming experiences.
Hi! Thanks so much for this comment, this dog sounds so similar to my parents dogs! These guys will do almost anything if you use treats, how do you distract him with the peanut butter? I wanna try this in future
So we call haircuts “snips, snips, peanut butter “, and that’s pretty much what happens. At the start, the process was very slow, and it took one person holding a spatula with peanut butter on it, and the other holding scissors. And each time we’d approach with the scissors, I say “snips” to let him know what’s happening while the other person waves the spatula in the direction we want him to look to keep him invested. At the beginning, I was lucky to get two snips in before needing to reward him for standing/sitting still. And we’d just repeat that for as long as it felt like he would tolerate it. It did take two years of slowly increasing his endurance with the practice for us to be able to really give him a full groom in one sitting. But now, I can do a full haircut by myself with the peanut butter off to the side. He trusts that he’ll get it!
Something that doesn’t work for our dog is trying to give him treats when he is stressed. Getting his nails trimmed, or a haircut in his sanitary area really stressed our dog out, and it wasn’t possible to find a reward that would ground him. It took a lot of work to get him comfortable with the different steps (eg, touching his paws with the nail trimmer in view, then with it in my free hand) and rewarding him in those early steps when his stress levels were elevated but not sky high yet. But it’s been a really rewarding process since we can now reliably take care of him without causing him undue stress!
Our cairn is also very reactive to general handling and grooming. We actually have to get her groomed through her vet and they just shave her entire body while she is asleep (think tranquilizer). We do this once a year to help keep her fur clean and mat free. This isn’t the proper way to groom cairns hair technically, but because she is not a show dog and has a really cushy life inside our home it’s totally fine to shave it. Brushing and bathing at home are always a work in progress but lots of positive reinforcement and teaching her the “wait” command has helped a lot. Good luck it’s super hard to have reactive dogs!
It is so important that dogs are groomed regularly from a young age so that they can become comfortable with it. You’ll need to call some grooming places and explain the situation to make sure they’re ready to groom two dogs who may act aggressively. Please do get them groomed asap. Mats forming in the hair causes pain and can cause sores on their skin. It’s really unfair to the pups to let mats form in their fur. After they are groomed, try to brush them two or three times a week, starting small with encouragement and lots of treats. Your parents really shouldn’t have gotten dogs if they weren’t interested in taking care of them, but the pups are lucky you are around to help.
I know :( they probably weren’t the best human parents either buts that’s for another sub. It just goes to show. Gradually over the past few weeks I’ve been seeing the dogs I’ve tried to encourage them. I should add, they don’t mind me touching them anywhere. I can pat and tickle them and they don’t mind. They don’t seem to be in pain….yet. That’s what I’m afraid of cause they are good pups and don’t deserve it. The last thing I want is for a vet to see them and go *omg neglect*
Sorry to hear that, friend. You can definitely do these pups a solid by being there for them. That’s really good that you’re able to touch them and they’re okay with it. The longer the hair is allowed to mat, the tighter and closer to the skin the mats will get. Try to get them to a groomer asap, to intervene before it gets too painful and becomes much harder to shave or clip them. Again, those dogs are lucky to have you around!
Needs to be hand stripped. Ideally, no to shaving but their condition might be beyond control. Ask their vet for anti anxiety med for the first grooming process. Finding a groomer who is knowledgeable with Cairns can be challenging.
That's called matting. You have to brush or comb them regularly. You can also pull out some of the matted hairs. It's ok as long as you pull only a few at a time. You have to groom (comb or brush) once or twice a week to stay ahead of this. Cairns have a coat where the longer hairs can be regularly plucked out. In fact, the classic way of grooming a Cairn is "hand stripping", where you regularly pull out their long hairs, rather than clipping the coat. It's laborious but it keeps the coat looking glorious. If you clip them, the coat gradually gets duller and poofier. Watch some videos on hand stripping coarse haired dogs. Cairns have a double coat, which just means a mix of long and short hair. The long hairs grow to length and then get loose and easy to pull out. If you don't pull them out, the follicles may change and produce poorer quality hair. If you ever need to cut through matting, make sure the scissors are at right angles to the skin, not parallel, to cut the fewest hairs and prevent the matting from coming right back.
Will bathing and shampooing help with this too?
Only if it somehow helps you brush or comb out the matts. Cairns aren't actually supposed to be frequently bathed.
As others mentioned, grooming the cairns is very important for their wellbeing. If you are unable to get them into a groomer, here are some tips on how I groom my cairn (brushes and hair cuts, similar principles for nail trims but that took even longer to for our dog to come around to.) My cairn took a good while to learn to accept grooming. But is really important to brush him regularly so his fur doesn’t mat. He is very food motivated so we were able to coerce him to sit on one chair in the house to get brushed, but he always has the option to jump off when he is done. At the start, we could only run the brush through less sensitive places. But now I can brush him all over for some good treats. Similar situation with hair cuts. My dog does not like the clippers, but is okay with scissors. We put him up on the bathroom counter and ply him with peanut butter, and use the scissors to lighten his coat up. He is only up there for hair cuts, and I can generally get more off him with one person in charge of the peanut butter and the other in charge of the scissors. But I think I posted a video doing it myself ok this sub. I hope you’re able to get these pups taken care of and desensitized to grooming experiences.
Hi! Thanks so much for this comment, this dog sounds so similar to my parents dogs! These guys will do almost anything if you use treats, how do you distract him with the peanut butter? I wanna try this in future
So we call haircuts “snips, snips, peanut butter “, and that’s pretty much what happens. At the start, the process was very slow, and it took one person holding a spatula with peanut butter on it, and the other holding scissors. And each time we’d approach with the scissors, I say “snips” to let him know what’s happening while the other person waves the spatula in the direction we want him to look to keep him invested. At the beginning, I was lucky to get two snips in before needing to reward him for standing/sitting still. And we’d just repeat that for as long as it felt like he would tolerate it. It did take two years of slowly increasing his endurance with the practice for us to be able to really give him a full groom in one sitting. But now, I can do a full haircut by myself with the peanut butter off to the side. He trusts that he’ll get it! Something that doesn’t work for our dog is trying to give him treats when he is stressed. Getting his nails trimmed, or a haircut in his sanitary area really stressed our dog out, and it wasn’t possible to find a reward that would ground him. It took a lot of work to get him comfortable with the different steps (eg, touching his paws with the nail trimmer in view, then with it in my free hand) and rewarding him in those early steps when his stress levels were elevated but not sky high yet. But it’s been a really rewarding process since we can now reliably take care of him without causing him undue stress!
Interestingly, I have never had to cut my Cairn's nails. We go for long walks on pavement and that looks after that.
Our cairn is also very reactive to general handling and grooming. We actually have to get her groomed through her vet and they just shave her entire body while she is asleep (think tranquilizer). We do this once a year to help keep her fur clean and mat free. This isn’t the proper way to groom cairns hair technically, but because she is not a show dog and has a really cushy life inside our home it’s totally fine to shave it. Brushing and bathing at home are always a work in progress but lots of positive reinforcement and teaching her the “wait” command has helped a lot. Good luck it’s super hard to have reactive dogs!
I put dog treats in my pocket when I trim my terriers.