Selecting and Caring for Grooming Shears

How to Select the Best Grooming Shears

There are many different types of dog grooming shears. When grooming both large and small dogs, you’ll realize you prefer long shears. Longer shears give you more coverage, making it easier for you to groom dogs.

Grooming shears should fit nicely in your hand and have some weight to them. They should open and close easily, but at the same time not be so loose that they wobble. They shouldn’t be too tight where the blades scrape together or stick.

Types of Finishing Shears

Your set of finishing shears should include Long Straight, Long Curved, Blending, Small shears, Ball Point shears and Thinning shears. Many professional dog groomers have several of each type. This way, when one set is becoming dull or being sharpened, they can still work.

• Long Straight shears: These are useful for scissoring cylindrical legs on curly coated dog breeds as well as the skirts on breeds like the Cocker Spaniel, West Highland and Maltese.
• Long Curved shears: These cover most all-over body work.
• Blending shears: These help conceal mistakes made by the clipper or scissoring.
• Long Thinning shears: These shears with slightly larger teeth will help remove bulk on Newfoundlands and other large breeds.

You should have at least one set of shears for precuts on unwashed dogs. Precut shears are the pairs you’ve dropped or no longer cut well even after sharpening the blades.

To maintain the life of your finishing shears, avoid cutting wet or dirty hair. That would be like cutting sandpaper. Also, you should never use your grooming shears to cut other types of materials other than dog hair. Make sure to clean your shears after each dog and keep them in their individual cases to prevent them from scraping each other.