Hand Stripping - 3rd Session

Ben is hand stripped on 04/09/2006. I bathed Ben before we went down to Kelvin’s farm at 1pm. Yeah! I finally met my online friend who has given me lots of advises since I have my white boy. I really appreciate her willingness to share her advises, tips and experiences with miniature schnauzer. “Thanks a lot! Petrina”.

This was my 1st attempt to hand stripping my miniature schnauzer. After applying some ear powder on the remaining topline “rectangular block”, I started to hand stripped under Kelvin’s supervision. Woah, seems easy from the beginning but after 20mins my thumb feels the burning sensation. Why thumb? Haaa.. I am stripping with my thumb over the index finger. Not a good way as the pressure is on my thumb and not the index finger and causing burning blister feeling. If index finger over the thumb, the stress point will be the index finger. Then I can rotate between the index and middle finger. Should also use my left hand too, so I have 4 fingers to burn… haha! Opss I did not cut my nails and I can possible cut the skin with my nails when stripping.

Keeping in mind what I have read about hand stripping…
1. Bathe the dog either before or after stripping.
2. Keep the dog’s skin taut while stripping.
3. Keep my wrist rigid and not to pull the hair out with a twisting motion.

Some of my areas of improvement. I got carried away to pinching out too fast, should slow down the process. I also pinched out too much, should be more focus and lesser amount of hair. Can strip the sections down to the skin, leaving the dog "bald" if I want to.Important area to note: The most painful part for the dog when comes to stripping are area on top near the tail, near the thigh and the neck. Thank goodness, Ben is coping with hand stripping very well. I only heard once that he cried when stripping near the tail area last week. Today, he can even sleep when stripping. Haa….I took about 1hrs to complete just the rectangular block on the top of the body. Sweat over my face and palm, maybe weather or maybe I am stressed. The rest of the remaining areas, the neck, head and ears are done by Kelvin. To a newbie like me, it is not easy to handle the detail stripping on these sections. Again, my boy is brave and no sound from him at all. “Good Boy!” and pat Ben’s botak head.

More photo @ This Link. Hope to write more but I am getting busy with my boy these days...