# Ear Dreads, What to Do?



## kdawnk (Mar 26, 2014)

Sans has curly wily hair around her ears and they're so fine and soft that they matt really easily even with daily brushing.
Her ears aren't like any other breed when I look at how to clip them. I having thinning shears and have trimmed the hair around her ear to follow her ear shape before and that's helped the fly-aways that are always happening, but the curly hair underneath looks awful still.

I don't think I have any good pictures of the curly hair but here's some pictures where you can see her ears and unkempt hair









You can kind of see the curly mess going on there









If you'd like better pictures I can take some at noon if anyone has any ideas. I don't know what breed guideline to use to trim her ears and they look so disheveled all the time.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

You can use thinning shears to get rid of that stuff under the ear too. I would look at golden or aussie trims. 

This video seems decent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETO5wKzgkr8

I cheat and shave all of that stuff off, which is much easier than doing it with thinning shears. The perks of a Welshie cut. You might be able to find some grooming videos of spaniels where they don't use clippers and just do it with thinners.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Her ears look almost exactly like my mom's Golden Retriever's. My mom shaves all of that light, fluffy stuff very short to prevent matting.


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## kdawnk (Mar 26, 2014)

Shaving feels like a big commitment hahaha, I don't mean time-wise. I mean, one miss-swipe with the shaver and she's going to look even more derpy than she does right now. My main issue with using the thinning shears on the under ear part is where/when do I stop? It just kind of joins into her neck and I have a hard time knowing when I'm done. Also I get a little scissor happy.
I asked the groomers one time to do it for me but they never got rid of the under ear locks, just the fly aways up top.

Thanks for the video though! That definitely agreed with what I've been doing with the ear itself. Except I don't get the point of using the straight shears after you've used the thinning shears... She wanted a nice natural look and then cut a straight line.
It's just the under ear hair that gets a little confusing. It also reaffirmed my realization that I definitely need new thinning shears, hers were awesome. Mine squeak every time I close them and doesn't seem to do much of anything unless I pull a little.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

Just cut away with the thinners until it looks good. They will do the blending for you so just cut off whatever you think should be cut off. All of that fur grows back pretty quickly anyway. If you watch videos of people doing goldens they cut down pretty close to the skin and once the ear is hanging it looks natural.

And definitely get better ones! That should help a lot. Any shears under $50 are probably going to be terrible to work with.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

I did as that video shows on Max. Didn't try to get close to the leather on the edges of the ears though, too scary. When I first got him I trimmed more like a spaniel, short below and behind ears with long hair on ears but switched to retriever ears and liked it better on him as his ear leather really wasn't very long.

My daughter plucks that fuzz off Ginger. Ginger is in her lap for a snuggle with an ear within range and she pulls out the longest hairs first, fluffs and pulls longest hairs. The longest stuff is ready to shed out and doesn't hurt at all and she will get used to the feeling so you can continue to pluck it out down to the level of the nice top coat. It seems like a lot of work and a lot of hair, you will be surprised at how little you need to remove for the area to look neat. 

I really prefer that to cutting the hair and hope to progress to doing it with Bucky as I like my dogs to look like the coat naturally grows neat, smooth and shiny all over. I thought plucking/stripping was just for terriers but find it an extremely useful technique for grooming any hair that overgrows and can tangle, catch debris, is old and rough or just looks bad.

Glad she isn't developing actual dreads like Bucky had!


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

Kathyy said:


> I did as that video shows on Max. Didn't try to get close to the leather on the edges of the ears though, too scary. When I first got him I trimmed more like a spaniel, short below and behind ears with long hair on ears but switched to retriever ears and liked it better on him as his ear leather really wasn't very long.
> 
> My daughter plucks that fuzz off Ginger. Ginger is in her lap for a snuggle with an ear within range and she pulls out the longest hairs first, fluffs and pulls longest hairs. The longest stuff is ready to shed out and doesn't hurt at all and she will get used to the feeling so you can continue to pluck it out down to the level of the nice top coat. It seems like a lot of work and a lot of hair, you will be surprised at how little you need to remove for the area to look neat.
> 
> ...


I try to strip certain area (like the thighs, they always get fuzzies on their thighs), but my hand starts to get tired pretty quickly and I give up and use the shears. I know it would look better if I was better at stripping though. I believe in the UK spaniel people generally don't use clippers at all and do it all by hand stripping. I found a cocker website (when looking for stripping tips) that said the groom on a really fluffy dog took 5 hours! :-o It looked beautiful though.

I trim around the outside of the ear with straight shears, as that's the correct Welshie trim, vs the other spaniels who generally leave longer hanging hair. I love the look and that it keeps hair out of their food and water. I hold the ear with my thumb on the edge of the leather so I know where it is, and then cut around where my thumb is so I don't cut the ear itself. It can be tricky when they're being uncooperative though.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

Max was wiggly about his ears, made me nervous! I trimmed close enough that the hair wasn't wavy and it actually looked neater than in the video as it tapered around the ear rather than having a blunt cut edge. Does look like I was trimming much like a Welshie ear!

I was plucking the fuzzies off Max before I found out about stripping/plucking was widely used on feathered coats. Had no idea!


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## kdawnk (Mar 26, 2014)

I bought some - slightly - better thinning shears and cut the ear-locks away. She looks much better, my mom came over right after I'd done her up and immediately noticed the difference. She says she looks significantly more clean cut!

I have to travel, apparently, to find good thinning shears. I bought some temporary ones from our local pet store/groomer but knew they were going to be awful. They recommended I go to the city next to us to find something better. So I guess a road trip is in store for me soon haha


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

kdawnk said:


> I bought some - slightly - better thinning shears and cut the ear-locks away. She looks much better, my mom came over right after I'd done her up and immediately noticed the difference. She says she looks significantly more clean cut!
> 
> I have to travel, apparently, to find good thinning shears. I bought some temporary ones from our local pet store/groomer but knew they were going to be awful. They recommended I go to the city next to us to find something better. So I guess a road trip is in store for me soon haha


I would just order online. I've never seen nice ones in a store anywhere - I imagine it would have to be a specialty type store.


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## kdawnk (Mar 26, 2014)

Yeah I'm pretty hesitant to order stuff online from stores. I'll have to do some digging and see what's available and good in Canada.
I don't know much about grooming products so I'll have to do some googling about what exactly I'm looking for.

There's apparently a store in the city next to me that sells the grooming products to our groomers in our city. That's where they told me to go, so if all else fails... road trip!


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

kdawnk said:


> Yeah I'm pretty hesitant to order stuff online from stores. I'll have to do some digging and see what's available and good in Canada.
> I don't know much about grooming products so I'll have to do some googling about what exactly I'm looking for.
> 
> There's apparently a store in the city next to me that sells the grooming products to our groomers in our city. That's where they told me to go, so if all else fails... road trip!


You'll be pretty successful by picking a price range, looking at the shears in that range, and picking one at random. Other than the number of teeth they have they are basically the same. Some people like one brand vs another but it's more for how the grip feels, which is important when you groom dogs 40 hours a week, but not at all when you do it for 1 hour a month.

Personally I hate driving long distances to get stuff so I just prefer to order online. But if it's a store that sells to professionals I'm sure they'll have what you need.


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