I still remember many years ago, actually 15 years ago my first time as a contestant during a Grooming Competition. It was in France, July 1994, at Saint Gervais d’Auvergne during the Selective of the French Grooming Championship that was held in November that same year. I was going to School at this time too to learn grooming. It was a course of 6 month starting beginning April 1994 to the end of September 94.
For my first weekend “out” I decided to groom a terrier: “Lucie” an 11 month old female black Scottish Terrier. She was owned by a breeder who provided some of her own dogs for the Grooming School I was learning from. On the conformation side I was still learning and not have enough knowledge on breed standard. She was long; sway back, straight shoulders, lack of neck, big ears and bad tail set. Her furnishings were not full as some other dogs in this breed especially black color ones can have as puppy.
The way I did learn to hand strip a Scottish terrier in France was different than here in the US. The breeder did teaches me to use only knifes for hand striping techniques on the body lines. Other areas of the dog like the head, checks, neck, shoulders and ears with clippers, with a #7 or #10 blade depending on the coat type. The feet, under tail, underline with straight shears.
The class was a 2 hours time frame; all the contestants were competing together without different levels. 9 contestants were in the ring grooming Terrier like Westie, Scottish, Wire Fox and Lakeland. No clipped Terriers were being groomed like Kerry Blue or Wheaten only hand stripped dogs. I remember I was looking everybody else hand stripping their dog like they were doing it every day. Lucie was very good but was not very fond of grooming! She was laying, sitting down and moving around on the table all the time. The breeder didn’t “work” a lot with her as she told me before I take her to the competition with me. I didn’t really understand what she meant until I start to groom her! But I did the best I can, I kept my calm and tried to remember on the same time the little bit I’ve learn before about this breed. I hand strip her body, clipped what need it to be clipped. After a while…I saw that I did make a mistake, I shaved too much one side of the back of one ear. It was too late to fix it I tried to correct so it didn’t look to different from the other side. I remember still other mistakes I made during the grooming. Her eye brows…well I left them too long and instead of trimming them to “fit” with her muzzle I left them too long so the overall head was really looking short! I did trim her feet around way too short that I was seeing every nails to the paws. Her tail was long and fine and I made it longer taking too much coat off! I didn’t do enough attention when I did hand strip her back and she end up with a bad dip behind her shoulder blades. Oh another mistake I did and I was not alone, everyone has done this, instead of leaving enough coat between her ears to make them closer and smaller I took off most of it! Now after many years on learning more and more about this breed, I do smile when I look and think about that class and the photos that were take during the competition. You and I can really see what I am talking about when I said I did make mistakes! I can go on and on about that first class with my first Terrier and just said I did the best of my knowledge and that what was counting. I was proud when I was done with her, she was looking very nice for me...but I don’t think it was for the judges! They went on every detail about the grooming –the good, the bad. I remember them telling me: “your Scottish look very nice but…” One think they like was that my table cover was matching my shirt and the dog: white and red plaid! Things that I kept doing for many years during my competing career.
After all of this I still did smile and told myself that it was the first time I was competing. I did the best I can and will do better next time now that I know what I did wrong and learn from that first time and the judges. If you ask me what was my placement after all of this and the final judging what do you think? We were 9 contestants in that class, I finish last…9th place! Yes I got a 9th in that class and if you ask me how do I know it’s because I went myself ask the judge after the final placement were announced.
Everybody’s a winner in his own way, you win you lose but remember one think never stop to learn and be proud of yourself; hold your head up with everything you do. Like everybody I did win but did lost too but always try to keep focusing on what went or was wrong and make it better for the next “round”. We all start somewhere someday with or without all the experience and knowledge needed just remember…today’s over…tomorrow is a new day.
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