Grooming an Australian Labradoodle’s head, ears and face.

So a couple times I've been asked what do I use on my Australian Marigold's face to do their around their eyes or their beard and their veins. So first of all you know I've got a comb that I like to use. We have a curved shear around the eyes. Here's my regular thinning shear and then for the beard I either can use this or a set of chunkers. So I'm going to get my girl up here in just a minute and try to set this up so you can watch me shape up her face a little bit. So give me just a second. All right so this is Wren. I'm going to shape up her beard. I'm going to shape up a little bit around her eyes. Maybe trim off some of her ear hair. So first thing we're going to do and I'm going to try my best to let you see everything is we're going to clean out the corners of her eyes. So this hair right here and here. So how you do that is you take your comb and you comb everything back. Okay you take your thinning shears and I like to get my fingers and just ruffle up the hair right there. You see how it's standing up? Now that hair's standing up. I'm on both sides and then I lay my thinning shears at an angle right close to her. I do not get her her lids of her eyes but what you're going to do is you're just going to take off just the corners. Now on this one it's easier for me let's look down baby to get that down and you still see there's some there so you can you just lay it just lay it. Don't get the eyelids but you're going at an angle towards the corner of the head and you're just cleaning that out. I'm going to do this side again I'm just roughing it up with my fingers. Do not go across you don't cut you don't cut across this way. So shake that up that looks nice and open and then what I want you to do is brush all the bangs forward and get our curved shears and what I'm going to do is I want to go at an angle again and go in some people like it to be go to enter that would be the inside of the V so the V goes like this. I like a little bit more wide so what I do is I can get it there you go baby I go in and just nip and make a just a wide like U and come down the other side. Eventually what you want is you want this piece of your hair to blend in with the ear so this ear's got to be short a little bit so let's just see can you look down please thank you ma'am all right you see that the U right there if you want more cut that's your preference. I like the corners of the eye to be slightly covered it's just the classic look of an Australian. Again some people like the V cut I like a little bit more open so I'm going to do the U there we go there all right a way to watch to see the hair um play naturally grab them right here and softly shake them kind of like how they do themselves and then you can see it look down again babe this is going to be trimmed up I can see one little piece right there let me snip all right as long as I mean if you have a dog that's moving around I wouldn't use um long shears but as long as the point is past the eye you don't have to worry about it if you don't know your dog is going to be still don't do this I don't want them to jerk and keep poking in the eye okay all right so the next trick real quick would be the beard what you don't want to do is go back here and cut this part of the beard short that's why you pull everything forward so from back here by the eye pull it forward past the nose because what it's going to do is it'll cut this section shorter and leave this one longer they'll be like a layered look so it'll cascade like it's supposed to so what I like to do is I grab my fingers see there to the finger in between the two fingers and I want it however long I'll slide my finger out however I need to this is where I get my chunkers and the reason why you don't want to do a straight shear or a straight cut is because the chunker gives it more of the uneven look more natural look to it so I just cut that off and then I lift it up and you already tell that one side shorter than the other so we're going to try to do the same length pull everything forward try to judge it best you can I see some pieces are longer than others so we're going to snip some of that off good girl let's see oh how pretty yes you may amuse your pretty girl yeah if you want your underneath part of your beard you go across to the throat and trim some of that up you gotta keep your mouth shut for a second okay I'll get that shaked up a little bit all right now for the ear I'm going to turn her sideways this is the trick I like to do with the brush them down I like to start in the middle I'm going to slide my two fingers one underneath the ear leather the one and then top and we're going to go all the way down until your fingers slide you feel it like slide off the ear leather and then all this is nothing but hair so you can cut it however short or long you want to cut it but on an Australian I like a little bit more of shorter ear because it gives them the teddy bear look for this you do want to cut straight across not thin and sheer down and then what you do is you literally follow your line on the first cut and you follow the lines all the way to the back of the ear head down thank you make sure you get see if you can tell that uneven even cut and then you're going to come back through and make sure you didn't miss anything head down and it's a I'm using curved but it doesn't matter not you're just not going to use a thin and sheer scissors okay then you're going to come forward towards the front part of the ear and you come about I don't know just a small section of the curve to continue and this way I like to do it forward brush it down see that it needs to cut off all right and now this the side of the ear you want to pull forward don't cut it with the rest of the ear get all that face hair out of there you pull this forward and cut it straight up okay that's going to give you the side of the hair and by collecting all that can you see the cut marks in there you you're cutting layers into the ear hair all right this needs to be a little bit more you can just judge it I just want my girl to look cute she's not going to go into showering anytime soon so now here's another trick turn her this way get the ear to look cute and fluffy with different layers we're going to comb it up comb all this ear hair up and let it stand up and then what I do get the head hair out I just do little small snips to shape it not much you're just taking just the tips off just to give it a little shape this needs to come off some more girl you got more ear hair than I thought yes you do there we go all right so that's one head one ear okay so to trim up some of the top of the head you don't want a round ball it's not like a poodle it's almost kind of like a square head in a way maybe not that flat but it kind of needs to lay a little bit like that so if you need to trim some of it up you're going to do it in all kind of different ways first of all we're going to get a piece and start our length so I'm going to pull it up I'm going to get my chunkers remember you don't want want cuts you just want something that looks uneven and can will lay more natural okay and you go all over now when you want to do let's get this side a little bit early you're unsure cut a little off at a time you can always go back and fix if you cut too much you have to wait for a grow out one thing I've learned and I tell everybody it's hair it will grow back probably faster than what you want it to do good girl now when you get back here to the back a smart thing to do is to make sure it goes at an angle pull up and then pull forward and what it does is leave the hair in the back longer so it'll cascade in the back of their neck like it's supposed to and blend very well so towards the back on this side you need to on the side do the same same thing show them pull up and over remember what that's going to do is going to leave this side this side longer girl man let's see what you look like how's that look huh we got one ear done one ear not so you got the gist of the idea okay so now with this part of the beard and face you're going to comb it down and you're going to get the ear out of the way pull it back out of the way and you're going to cut down to about the jaw line and then round it and then you stop about right here look down baby and then start rounding it this way so all this will flow in try not to cut cut the side not the top of the head and I do like to use the shears because it already gives me a shape okay look at me oh that's a good girl and remember I didn't I didn't mess with anything up here because it goes into the head all right I'm going to finish her up and I'll show you the done product