Grooming Your Bichon Frise

This video is one of the very best I have found. It shows how to scissor a Bichon for a full show coat or a maintenance pet cut.

Les Poochs

Combing and Brushing Your Bichon

Regular combing and brushing is required to prevent mats from forming in your Bichon's coat.  It also frees any loose hair and keeps the coat from looking dirty.  Mats usually form behind the ears, at the base of the tail, and underneath the legs and arm pits.  Scratching, getting wet outside, playing with other dogs, running in wet grass are all ways that mats can form.

The best brush to use on the body is a slicker brush. A pin brush may be used for the face and tail or any fragile areas.  It is VERY important to get down to the skin with the brush being careful not to scratch the skin.  You need to brush from the root of the hair.  It is easy to think that you are brushing your Bichon correctly but you may be missing mats close to the skin.  These mats are the most problematic and can cause the hair to pull and be uncomfortable to the dog.  Sometimes parting the hair in the area that you are brushing is helpful to see the skin.  This technique is called "line brushing".  Brush in the opposite direction of the hair growth.  The idea is to fluff not smooth the hair.  When you feel your Bichon is brushed take your 7 1/2 Medium/Coarse Greyhound Brand comb and comb through the coat.  If the comb gets hung up and does not easily go through the hair, you have more brushing to do to remove the mats.  Make sure to brush and comb the legs and feet.

Tip - I have found using a brushing spray (some good ones are found in links under “grooming”) to be very helpful in keeping the coat free from static (a problem in the dry desert here) I spray it on in a light mist before brushing.

Bathing Your Bichon

It is very important to find a good groomer that understands the Bichon Frise trim. Regular bathing is important for the Bichon.  I recommend every two weeks.  Depending on the length of coat, trimming can be done every other bath.  If you are bathing your Bichon in-between groomer visits, use a mild shampoo and a light conditioner (shampoo) (conditioner).  Use one formulated for dogs not humans.  There are many great shampoos and conditioners in links under grooming. The drying is the hard part.  Professional groomers have the proper blow dryers for this.  A normal hand held blow dryer is hard to work with unless you have 3 arms!  Often times those blow dryers are too hot for the Bichon's sensitive skin.  If you do use one use the warm or cool setting.  Bichons do not look like Bichons if they are left to "air dry".  To get the fluffy Bichon look you must dry the hair with a blow dryer and fluff with a slicker brush as it dries.