First Session

My first session with Rockstar, known as Rocky, I had not much idea what to expect other than having seen some old photos.  I knew he lived on a farm, and I knew his owner did most of his grooming herself.  Nonetheless, we had some time to work with, so I figured I'd just rough out a pattern and let him grow out as needed until the show.  My original plan was as German Clip, which looks about like this:

It's a relatively easy pattern, it can be easily modified to accentuate a dog's good features, it looks more masculine than a "traditional" Poodle show clip, and because the hair is not left incredibly long, it was an obvious choice for a rough-and-tumble farm dog.

So he arrived looking like this:

In addition to not having had his usual shave-down recently, he was apparently very fond of rolling in anything and everything he found on the farm.  There was very little evidence of any form of Poodle look.  On the other hand, in spite of his appearance he had very little matting, and underneath the dirt his coat was quite thick and very nicely textured for scissoring.  So the plan was:

-Brush, brush brush

-Ears, feet, face, and throat- #10 reverse.

-Body- Skim with a clipper comb to even out without cutting length off.

-Tail- clip down even with body, no pom

-Head- start shaping into a pom and crest.

-Pluck out ears, dremel nails

-LOTS of shampoo

The efforts of that first session:

Much shorter than the German clip is supposed to be, but I didn't have to cut off much body hair.  I did trim the center area of the torso down slightly, to allow the legs to grow fuller than the body.

The next part was just to let him grow, so we left him to himself for a few weeks.