He returned for his final pre-show grooming. My camera was failing when he arrived, so I grabbed a picture after his bath and fluff-out instead.
Not too far off from where we left him, just about 1/2" furrier again.
This time, with the exception of the shaved areas, I committed to doing a full scissor clip on his entire body. The grand total grooming time was close to 6 hours, counting breaks it stretched to 8.
First, a hydro-surge whitening bath. Then a fluff-dry.
I used a #30 on his ears, a #10 reverse with clipper-vac on his feet, and face. I left his throat line slightly higher and blended it in, not wanting to go to the point of his breastbone as I had originally planned.
And everything else, was just scissoring and fluffing.
Finally, we got to this:
There were areas of the leg that could have been straighter, but I was exhausted and so was he, so we left it as be. At the time I was quite pleased, looking at it now I have found a number of flaws.
You can notice first, I left his torso area far too full. The torso should have been shorter, allowing him to look leaner.
Second, I failed to achieve the curve and angle of the rear end and hind leg.
Third, in an effort to make his body look shorter, as he's slightly long in the torso, I trimmed his chest shorter. This compromised the breastbone curve the clip requires. The better option would have been to work away at the rear end more.
The head and crest came out fairly well, I see nothing I would change. I think the slimming down I did on the sides of the shoulders achieved a nice line from the front view.
But this was what we had, so it was off to the show!
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