Bichon, Bichon Frise, Adoption and Grooming

 I Have Unlimited Bandwidth And A Big Computer
I know most of you are saying so what.  Well with ATT you don't have unlimited bandwidth and with hughes you get shut down if you use too much in one day.  You can use all you want between 3 am and 6 am, isn't that sweet?  Anyway my connection may not stay on for long periods but I am not limited in what I watch.  I was going to work on taxes and my ongoing battle with UPS but......
Here's an old Animal Planet Video of Bichons, great for anyone to watch who is considering getting one.  And getting their hair to look like that?  The curly sort of dreadlocky thing is easy.  The fluff like a plush carpet.  Not so easy.  Otherwise they are perfect.

The next video is by BBird there are a bunch more on youtube by her.  Groom Studio is the name.  She was my first inspiration and source of information for correctly grooming a bichon.  Here's a link to her website and scissoring a bichon head.  As I have an insistent little head pushing up on my arm because I won't help him on my lap.  Sort of like a bull  in miniature, a bull crossed with a bulldozer?






This is Buttons.  Her family gave her to a kill shelter because they thought she was too old.  She may have 10 more years to live, she is only 10 now and bichons are very healthy long lived dogs.  She is in Deleware now.
Go here to ask about her.

Now we have Gidget.  She is 5 months.  If you REALLY want an energetic bichon this is it.  It seems her family turned her back  in because she was just too energetic for them.  Puppies are energetic but she is like high maintenance, that said you will have a wonderful companion when she settles down.  SHE   MUST HAVE TRAINING.  Gidget is in PA.

 

Of course there are many more pets on petfinder.com.  If you are thinking of buying a dog, cat, or another animal please just browse, adoption may be the way to go for you and it rescues some animal from a lonely life.  

Home Grooming A Bichon Frise

I home groom my Bichon Frise Dispatch, Bichons are some of the most labor intensive dogs to groom but the results are well worth it. If you prefer you can use a trimmer and go for a more all over shorter cut for your Bichon Frise but my husband likes Dispatch to be fluffier. I compromise during the summer and since I've found this marvelous link on this forum bichon.ca I decided to try scissoring myself (it has illustrations, a lifesaver). I use a simple pin brush I got from petsmart, a little slicker brush I found on sale @ Wal Mart, a detangling comb and ouchless brush I think I got from petsmart also. And a pair of generic scissors, they turned out to work better than my good ones that were specifically to trim dogs. Bichons have LOTS of curves so a pair of curved scissors would be a good investment also but I did this without them. Dispatch is not good when I groom him but he's getting better. For absolute before pictures see the previous post, he hadn't been thouroughly trimmed for 2 or more months and was rather shaggy. I hate to break my tone of this post by saying something funny but I know why bichons are small dogs! If they were bigger they would be shaved and they aren't pretty shaved. Seriously though, grooming a bichon is a time consuming process but actually all this probably only took me a 2-3 hours and that included brushing, trimming, brushing again, trimming, bathing, brushing again and final trim and brushing once more. If I had kept up with the brushing and bathing better and not let his hair get so long I probably could have gotten it down to a little over an hour.




This is him after the first brushing and trim. You might not see any difference between him in the video and him now but trust me there is about an inch or so of hair off of his back and I've started to shape his legs.


It was getting late and I decided we needed a good nights sleep to continue. As you can see my grooming table is the all purpose patio table when the weather is warm.
This is him this morning after further leg shaping and face shaping, his eyes are squinted because he thinks the flash is going to go off, fooled him! His hair on his legs is probably over 1 inch long, that on his back toward his rear is 1/4 to 1/2 inch long. You aren't supposed to give a bichon a tuck on his belly like poodles have but Dispatch is so sensitive about being trimmed near his man parts I'm like doing it while holding him so he has a slight tuck.
Now the bath which you can see he is SO very happy about, I used mild flea shampoo and then whitening shampoo, I ususally use conditioner to make brushing easier but he hates getting rinsed so much I decided to use no more tangles on his legs, his head and back are easy to brush, his head becuase it's fairly straight and his back because it's so short and he doesn't mind having it brushed. I did use the pedipaws on his nails too.
This is him all clean and white, first I towel dried him and then after a bit we went outside for the brushing and final trim. He is probably/maybe part poodle so he is really curly, you have to brush a bichon while they are wet to get the fluffy straight look. If you really want to know more about bichons and what owning one involves the best source for information is once again the bichon.ca forum I think. You can see a few of my pitiful grooming tools on the table along with the sheets of drawings I have printed out for reference. The dog continuously faces me hoping beyond hope I will take him off the table so that's why he's not quite sideways. The biggest mistake I found myself making or overlooking is trimming under his round head hair on his neck to give his head shape. That and the ledge above the eyes make up the typical bichon "look" plus of course the plume of a tail and the cylindrical legs. And them walking around on their hind legs because they want to be picked up, or fed, or entertained?
This is the wild groomed bichon in the wind. I see a couple points on his rear that need smoothed and a couple more on his front leg and chin but that could have been the wind.
And here are the three amigos, Dispatch, Skeeter, and Mugsey who is really alive, just goes into chill mode quickly. And that is how you groom a bichon. Trust me my previous trims have NOT turned out so well.

Bichon Grooming Bath and Final Brushing

He's not so cute when wet. I used antibacterial deodorizing shampoo and whitening shampoo this time because I don't think he has any fleas.
Here he is after the first brushing with a pin brush and partly dried in front of an electric heater, he REALLY hates a blow dryer but sometimes we resort to it when pressed for time. In the summer I just brush him outside and dry him on the patio.And this is him in all his glory in the living room where no one ever goes except the grand kids to play because it's big? I used a comb on him to finish partly and no mats or snarls, well hardly any but I avoided those, will trim some later.
And I tell him to sit so he stands and looks out the window one way............
and then the other way because I call kitty hoping he will look @ the camera but it flashes and he doesn't like it. I could have brushed his legs and feet a bit more but we were both getting tired and his haircut is rather uneven but after 3 hours and 2 people this is as good as it gets! Look @ the before pictures this morning a couple posts below this and see if it's not an improvement. Maybe not as much as a beauty parlor for a woman but close?!

Brushing the Bichon part II with Daughter and Granddaughter

Ok, my plans for the day went awry when I took a nap, then my daughter and the grandkids came over. Was a good day, don't see them enough when it's just sitting around. We finished watching Best of Show, dumb movie, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Watched the kids wrestle and fight over who got the last little debbies cake even though there are boxes and boxes of em, all the nutty bars are gone. Grandma does bake on occasion, just not this occasion!

So we did get the dog brushed, here's the pictures including Sara brushing the Lab, Mugsey, he enjoyed it. JJ my oldest daughter held Dispatch the bichon and we brushed and combed him. Dispatch has a love hate relationship with JJ, for some reason he loves her but is deathly afraid of her so he was a GOOD BOY when we brushed him. She made him behave when he was a puppy and cut his hair and pulled it out of his ears (not cruel, necessary for a bichon) and he has been VERY wary of her ever since but he loves her, she smells and sounds like mommy of course he loves her! Pictures were taken in the family room, it's supposed to be messy!

Brushing the Bichon part I

You say what's the big deal? Well it's supposed to be done every day. I haven't done it for a few days and like a week before that, the last haircut was inside which didn't make for an even haircut and he needs a bath. Pictures @ top are before and last ones are after the FIRST brushing with the pin brush. Bath will be on later, I hope. First a rest for both of us and then brushing with the slicker brush and maybe combing and a bit of trimming. BTW he HATES grooming of any kind except long brushes with the people brush.