Breed Trim: Airedale

Duke before

Duke is an eight month old Airedale Terrier.  As shown in the before photo his coat was quite fully grown in from the last Breed Trim that he had.  This is just his second full groom; he was tense at the start but settled down very well.  An Airedale breed trim is very sleek to show off their well muscled body.  For a “pet” groom the length can vary from a #10 to a #5 but a #10 looks beautiful; leg hair length is personal choice also.

Duke groomed Breed Trim

• On Duke I used a #10 blade on the body.
• The legs are left with some fullness with the feet shaped nice and tidy.  I set the length for the legs starting just at the front “elbow” using a 1/2 inch comb attachment with no back-brushing; I then scizzored the legs to get the even tubular look.  I set the length and scizzored the same way for the back legs down from about 4 fingers above the hock and from the tuck up on down.
• There is a light fringe left on the underside in keeping with the length chosen for the legs.  The chest is shaved with a #10 blade tapering off just before the spot where the hair changes to several growth directions.
• All of the transition areas (from#10 blade to 1/2 inch comb) are tapered and then blended away to smoothness with blending shears.
• The muzzle of an Airedale is usually left natural with just a bit of tidying to give it a brick shape.
• I used a #10 blade to shave the top of the head and jaw as well as the shave the tail.
• For shaping the eyebrows I combed the hair straight forward and used scizzors pointed forward toward Duke’s nose.  I then used to blending shears to carefully fine tune between the brows.
• The ears are shaved with a #10 blade also and ever so carefully closely trimmed around the edges with scizzoring always keeping my fingers between the ear leather and my shears.  If anybody is going to get cut it will just be me…not the dog.