Self-Grooming the Girls: Successful- I think...

Brandon and I had to make a quick visit to Dog Patch (an awesome pet store where we got both of our girls! I highly recommend it!) on Saturday. Well, it is never actually a quick visit, especially when we take the munchkins with us. Sophie loves exploring the store with all of the new scents and sights and people to lick! Izzie kind of has to be dragged around through the store. She is much more timid than Sophie in these situations. Anyway... We saw some grooming equipment and realized that if I do self-grooming with the pups it would pretty much equal the cost of one trip to the groomers to get the equipment. Then, every time I clip them myself we will saving that money and the clipper would pay for itself in one use. We figured this was a better plan than just using one of Brandon's old electric razors which had been the original plan. So, the plan was to clip the hair first, then bathe, and finally clip the nails. Here are the supplies:

And here are some before pictures of my scruffy babies

We prepared by blanketing the bathroom with an old blanket that the dogs have inherited for catching doggy hairs. I have towels set aside for the future bath as well. I also put some treats in here for bribes.

We decided it would be easier to do Sophie first. The groomers always tell us how great she is to work with and Izzie has some anxiety about even being brushed, so I wanted to get familiar with the new equipment on Sophie before I attempted Iz. Well, I immediately started trimming her dry with the longest attachment (3/4 inch). That was too long so I went  a bit shorter (1/2 inch) and that was still a little long so i ended up using the 3/8 inch attachment. The clipper did get caught in her hair some, which she absolutely did not appreciate. I stopped the clipping and brushed her out really well before I continued. Things went pretty well for awhile after that. I think we both started to be exhausted after an hour or so... Who knew a tiny dog could have so much hair? She started to get irritable and was snipping at me some, even with Dad in her face giving her treats and lots of love. By the time I was trying to trim up her paws and face with scissors she was completely done with me, started snipping at me, and I handed over the scissors to Brandon. He was able to trim up her paws after a short break, then I went back to doing her face and ears. I left her fur longer on top of her head because i want to grow their top-knots back in. I do not care if the groomer thinks they look like they have pineapples on their heads- I think they are adorable with the pony tails. Izzie kept coming in and out of the bathroom checking up on Sophie and trying to scam for treats. After the trim and a short potty break I grabbed Izzie to do some trimming. I had decided not to do a full haircut with her because her hair isn't as thick or long as Sophie's. It also doesn't curl up as much, so I decided not to torture her or myself by cutting her hair. I trimmed around her face and ears with the scissors, just to clean her up a bit. Then we attempted the nail clipping. This was the part I was most apprehensive about because I was so afraid of hurting them. Brandon held her while I clipped and she cried and whined and tried to get away. I did end up clipping all of her feet though. Then, it was Sophie's turn for the nail clipping. She put up such a fuss that I gave up after 2 paws. Here was the bathroom after the grooming.

I then gave them a bath and Brandon towel-dried them. Izzie is afraid of the blow dryer anyway and I wasn't up for holding down a struggling pup any longer. They then ran around the house like crazy while drying off. After I showered and had a much-needed glass of wine I brushed them out and future tortured them by putting bows in their hair.

The finished product:

All in all, I would say the grooming was a success. It was more time-consuming than I expected. I think it took a least 2 hours to cut, trim, and bathe them (and I didn't even use the trimmer on Izzie). This will have to be an all-day project in the future. They do smell good and look adorable, but I wasn't able to get Izzie's tear stains very well and they aren't nearly as polished as they are when they get groomed by professionals. It was good to have this extra hands-on attention with them though and we did notice an irritation in Sophie's ear that we may not have noticed otherwise. If I were to buy another clipper I would to make sure it was cordless and could be charged. The benefits of this would be to be able to do the trimming outside to avoid the fur flying everywhere and the cord did get in the way a little bit while we were trimming.
 The rest of the night Sophie was exhausted. She did nothing but curl up next to me (apparently I was forgiven for earlier) and sleep.