Yes it takes a while to grow out. Abby's looks longer that it actually is b/c she's only about 6 inches tall and her hair is about 3-4 inches lol. And a lot of people use expensive detanglers made for dogs and everything but I just use some low-cost(I didnt want to say cheap
) kids detangler that i get from the store(kids so its tear free in case it gets in her eyes). it works just as good as any other detangler.