Grooming Your Australian Labradoodle
Unfortunately most groomers do not know how to groom an Australian Labradoodle. Most will shave their bodies and leave their ears LONG.
When you find a great groomer that knows what they are doing and does a great job with your pup please share their information. We are going to start a referral spot on here for great groomers across the US! We are hoping to create a network of GREAT ALD groomers!!
Here is a grooming card from the ALAA. This is how your doodle baby is supposed to look! Please look for additional tips, photos and groomers links below....
One of the biggest mistakes by groomers is the ears. Your pups are not hound dogs! They are not Cocker Spaniels they are Australian Labradoodles!! The ear hair is supposed to go to the end of the leather and that is it. If your groomer is leaving 1-6" of hair on your pups ears past the leathery portion of the ear lobe they are doing it wrong! And your pup will not look as cute as they can be. It makes them look older and straggly. You can teach a groomer what you like in a cut. When we go to a stylist we usually take a photo of what we are hoping for in a cut or color. Take your grooming card with your pup and show them what you expect. 90% of the time the groomers want to give you the cut you are looking for. They may not get it the first time but if they at least try you can usually train them to learn and they will be grateful to you because people will stop you and ask you where you got your doodle groomed and they will get referrals.
Here are some photos of some dogs with their before and after. The first set of photos is Ms. Tesla. Tesla had just gone to the groomers. They did fine on her body but really messed up her ears. She was over for a photo shoot so I took some scissors to her ears and helped her out a bit. 😍
Here is our boy Brinks. The photo on the left is the photo of him when he came to us. The middle one is when I freaked out and needed to see if this boy had a cute head or not. 😍 The photo on the right is after his first grooming appointment a few days later with Dandy Doodle ❤️
Here is another great example from another breeder. Their girl came home from their guardian with long ears. She immediately took the scissors out and touched up her head. ❤️
The difference is huge!
We send these two photos along with the ALAA grooming cards home with all of our guardians and tell them to laminate them and take them to the groomers but to NEVER leave them with the groomers because you will change groomers at some point.
We send all of our puppies home with a
Miracle Coat Slicker Brush.
You will need a comb like this
This is my favorite grooming kit. If you click on the photo it will take you to a link so that you can buy one if you would like.
We groom our puppies every Monday. We wash and blow dry, trim nails, trim eye hair and bum hair. Keeping up the grooming weekly will help make your puppies life easier. They are going to have a lifetime of grooming ahead of them. Grooming them weekly to INCLUDE blow drying will help make the process easier on them and will be much less stressful when they are old enough to go to the groomers.
When looking for a groomer I would find a groomer that KNOWS that doodles:
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Are not supposed to have hound dog ears
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Doesn't groom 15 dogs at one time
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Doesn't use cages to blow dry them
RECOMMENDATION
Do NOT let your groomer flush your dogs ears. Most groomers offer it as a free service. I would say that in my experience if a groomer flushes the dogs ears 70% of the time the dogs end up with an ear infection that takes 30 days to treat and $300-500. Totally not worth it. Groomers aren't vets or vet techs and really shouldn't be flushing their ears, IMO. Do your baby a favor and YOU be the one to remove your dogs ear hair. You will be the nicest person to do this because you ❤️ your dog and don't want to hurt them. We've had some HORRIBLE experiences with this. One groomer took a nail dremel, turned it on in her ear, tangled up al the hair and pulled it out! 🥵 When my daughter picked up her dog, her dogs ears were bleeding and had sores all over them. Inhumane!
Bio-Groom or Miracle Corp make a product that will help remove the hair painlessly. Kind of like Nair for dogs. Much easier and something you can do while watching TV at night. We usually carry one of these two products and will have them available when you come for puppy pickup.
