Grooming Tips - Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

A reader asked: "Please give me tips on how to groom a Cavalier with a cotton cancy coat. Thick, profuse coat with fine hair. I've tried Mars coat king 20blade, mikki stripper and furminator. Besides those products, can anything else be done and can we use anything electrical for ease and also speed? Thank you."

I have to admit that in 37 years of grooming, I have only worked with 2-3 Cavaliers, so I put the question to my groomers email group. Here are some replies.

Ellen Meyer, NCMG, owner/operator of The Grateful Dog in Trinidad, Colorado, a competition groomer, wrote:
Cavalier coats overgrow after spaying, shaving or long time neglect. It can take a couple of grooms to get it under control and toughen the skin to the process, but then it shouldn't be difficult at all to maintain with monthly grooming.Start with a dirty dog. Place it sitting in front of you facing the opposite direction. Use a coarse (8 tooth) Coat King in long strokes from the neck all the way down the back, holding the skin firmly behind the skull. If it produces very little, cross the grain very slightly, but watch that you aren't cutting hairs.

When the tool stops working, advance to the medium Coat King and repeat. Next the fine. Once you are very experienced with these tools, it doesn't take too long to do a thorough strip (20 minutes including knifes). Now check the skin for irritation. You can stop and bathe, and use the knifes after, use stripping knifes now, or if you are satisfied with the density and color you've produced skip stripping knives all together.

I would probably wash and sack (towel) the dog and blow dry the feathers and ears. After the dog was dry, I would again place the dog in the same position (sitting, facing away) and go over with a coarse stripping knife. To make a knife very effective, I hold the skin tight in the area I am working and use short, brisk strokes in the direction of growth with the knife held almost flat against the skin, teeth facing up. Make sure it is a dulled knife so you don't cut hair or skin! Check the skin a lot, especially on a dog who hasn't had it done in a while. A fine stripping knife is probably unnecessary.

Now stand the dog up and finger pluck any downy hair growing down the legs. Use a stripping stone and finger pluck the face and stop until you're satisfied. Finish tailoring the body and head with thinning shears. Trim out the pads. Trim the feet into an oval shape using thinners if they are ridiculously overgrown.This may be slow going for a couple grooms, but it will restore the dog's beautiful colors and produce the correct coat growth. It should become easy to maintain in a few months. You just won't get the same results with anything mechanical and the undercoat will continue to become more profuse. I find this work very satisfying because of the beauty of the results.

These are just basic stripping instructions for spaniel and setter coats and they work on LH daschunds and chihuahua. Treat it like you would a cocker.

Lois Brown, NCMG, MPS, of The Grooming Booth, Fredericksburg, OH, said:
Treat it like you would a cocker. You could try carding the coat, or I've done everything from blades to snap on combs on them (only if they don't like all the hair though).

Susy the Groomer, CMG, Mobile Grooming with Style, Snohomish, WA, shared:
I have a fluffy cav and I've tried the gambit of tools and I have
ended up taking the green ss comb (Wahl snap-on comb) over him. Stripping him would have worked I suspect, but the owners don't want to pay that much.

BBird sez: I want to thank my groomer buddies for these responses. I can add that one of my favorite carding tools is the Mat Breaker. I started using this before the Coat Kings hit the scene, and I'm still reaching for it today. There are two significant differences between the CKs and the Mat Breaker - the handles, (the CK is on a perpendicular or T-handle, the MB has a horizontal or straight handle) and the MB has little barbs inside the blades that work great to pull out fuzzy stuff. I use the Mat Breaker to remove undercoat and fuzzy hair on everything from Collies to cats.

Another of my "secret weapons" for removing fuzzy hair is latex gloves. I use these to help me quickly hand pluck. I do lots of hand stripping of terrier coats with my fingers and the gloves, and I also use a glove to help me pluck out unwanted fuzz from Collies, Shelties, Newfies, Springers, etc.

Let's take a minute to further discuss a mechanical approach. Susy says she has resorted to using a snap on comb. Using a comb attachment or clipping with a blade is a last resort, as it will cut the hair. Just as with terrier coats, if we cut the fine fuzzy coat of a Cavalier, we will get finer, fuzzier, hair with faded color. The only way to promote new growth of less fine hair is to manually remove fuzz and allow a new, fatter, follicle to replace several fine fuzzy hairs. Unless you clear the follicle, you will not get a better replacement, as there is only room in the follicle for more fine fuzzy stuff. Does that make sense?

It is possible, however, to combine approaches. If you cut the topcoat, as with a snap-on comb attachment or a #4F blade, and then card out lots of fuzz (easier to card through a shorter coat), you will still be promoting some new growth of good hair. You will then have a combination coat, which you probably have anyway. As the new growth comes in, you can more easily address the old, fuzzier stuff. Of course, some new hair will be more of the fine, less desirable stuff. It does depend a lot on the DNA of the dog, and the hormonal status. For pets, however, a combination of clipping and carding can be a good compromise.