Advice on Legs

[Salix]

New member, first post….

We have an 18 month old miniature schnauzer who we adopted a few months ago. She is a very beautiful dog with an equally beautiful personality, such a wonderful little thing.

I have been getting up to speed on grooming. She has been slipped historically so I’m not looking to recover the harsh coat as probably too late.

However, I am currently trying to understand best approach to her legs as she is an excellent and consistent black colour (one of the blackest miniatures I’ve seen) but the legs are much more grey - this actually got worse in the first couple of months we had her as the greying at the tips seemed to spread down the hair, consistent in my understanding with the hair being dead. Conditioning and the like didn’t make a difference (which didn’t surprise me).

I have used a Coat King over recent weeks to remove some of this dead coat. While the legs look a touch sparse, it does seem to have improved things a little as obviously the driest, most dead hair comes out.

I am aware though that the Coat King is really thinning out by cutting not stripping (or at least partially so). I had therefore been looking perhaps at starting to use a stripping knife on them every now and then as I have read in a couple of places on this forum that this should help to ensure the new hair grows back black as you’re effectively re-booting the follicle. The aim would be once the legs are improved to scissor them for the most part with occasional stripping or raking for maintenance.

However someone mentioned to me that stripping the legs could mean they don’t really ever grow back nicely / end up sparse permanently. I don’t understand why this would be the case but you don’t know what you don’t know!

What would people recommend and if the stripping approach is a sound one, what knife would you use? The Danish rainbow ones look good to me and probably better than the red/blue Mars ones. And would you suggest using a fine or coarse knife for this purpose? Any particular technique for the legs that’s different from the body? I find coat directionality a little more confusing as the hairs don’t lay down and point in different directions.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

[Dawnspell]

Hi and welcome

Each hair follicle produces a wire hair and up to 12 undercoat hairs. The problem with stripping the legs is that you will end up with more of the wire hair so the legs wouldnt have as much hair. The legs generally arent stripped unlike a fox terrier where they are. I dont know if this is because the hair doesnt grow back as well as on the jacket or it doesnt strip out easily. I know I've stripped both my dogs on the head the texture isnt as wirey as on the jacket but its just not as thick so I do a bit of stripping and scissoring.

You cant make the already existing hair go black but making sure you condition from now on will help protect the new hair growing from becoming dry. If she has the genetics for a wire coat then you probably could get her into a wire coat since she not that old, but it depends on what coat type she has.

[Schnauzerluv]

You might want try a bit of argan oil on the legs. I've just started using it (for my hair too) and it absorbs quickly.

[Salix]

Thank you very much for these helpful responses.

I may experiment a little with periodic Coat King and or stripping but without going full on. Would this approach mean a coarse stripping knife is most appropriate? And one would only use the stripping knife in a direction down the leg?

The point around conditioning seems key - I’ve ordered some Argan oil!

Her coat is pretty soft (not quite luxuriously so, but in that direction), so I think it is not worth trying to recover the harsh coat. She will have a litter hopefully later this year so I may try with one of the girls we keep from that.

[Dawnspell]

I've just got the dk groomer coarse rainbow. It takes out a lot of hair with each pull so probably not the best option as you could end up with patches of wire rather than even throughout the legs. You could just use your fingers with finger cots on to pull the odd ones out. Or get a stripping stone and run it down the legs it would get dead hair and fluffy hair without cutting anything. Yes, you pull in the direction of the hair growth.

[Salix]

Thank you again, that’s very helpful. I may try the stripping stone as a halfway house!

[Schnauzerluv]

I accidentally pulled out some hairs on my boy's legs. He now has some wiry hairs at the top. What I do like about it is his hair doesn't mat up as much around the pits as he wears a coat harness for winter. And it's nice and black obviously. But if I'm being honest, I really think the fluffy furnishings look better. Of course that's just a personal opinion. But if you're wondering if it grows back as wire.....yes it does. It's not sparse, but my boy is a hella fluffy by nature (lots of hair!)