On long coated dogs I will shave certain parts of the underside if they are having certain problems. For potty issues I will shave a larger sanitary area. On girls I shave the inner thighs and private area, as well as up to the belly button. On boys I will shave the same area, plus the entire penis (including pee strings cause they just end up gross and sticky) and I take the shaved area about 2 inches in front of the penis as well to prevent them from peeing on their chest hair. If need be, due to male pee issues or continued matting on the chest area, i will "shell" out the entire underside of the dog from one armpit across the chest to the other down the chest to the groin and then down each inner thigh. It keeps the dog cleaner and mat free, especially if they are wearing clothes or if they keep getting their underside wet from rain/snow. If done right, one would never know by looking at the dog that the underside is shaved. Oh, on our yorkies, I make sure that I'm basically skimming the blade over the dog, i'm not really pressing the blade against the skin since these guys seem to have thin skin on their underside as well as thin hair.
__________________ Kellie  and  Morgan |