Proper grooming and trimming of the Bichon Frise is one of the essential characteristics of the breed, but also the most difficult part of taking care of your Bichon. If you have a professional groomer in your neighbourhood, I strongly advise you to bring your dog there at least once in 6 weeks, for washing, trimming, doing the nails, ears and teeth.

The brushing and combing of your dog you should do daily. First brush the coat thoroughly with the slicker brush and then complete the procedure by combing. When combing, you will be surprised how many knots are left in the coat although it has been brushed already! If you come across a matted area, brush it again with help of a little hair conditioner. The right brush, comb and other stuff you can find at my page Supplies.

Your Bichon Frise should be bathed and dried before trimming. Use a good quality shampoo and conditioner. Make sure you blow the coat of your Bichon Frise completely dry, otherwise it gets matted. Brush your Bichon Frise with the slicker brush while drying him, to prevent matting.

Above (as a photo) and below (as a drawing) you see the basic shape for trimming the Bichon Frise. Trimming is always with a scissor.

As every dog is different, you should start with creating the basic shape and later modify it into a shape that suits your dog the best. When creating the basic shape, be careful not to scissor the coat too short, otherwise there is no coat left anymore to be modified! Keep your scissors parallel to the part you are trimming. The top line (from the top of the head down to the withers) we keep always long, at least 6-7 cm, to create the typical Bichon Frise look.

Trimming of the head

When trimming the head, the broken line is how you should scissor and it should be a perfect circle, with the eyes in the centre. The other lines indicate the position of the ears. The ears are scissored at the same time as the rest of the head, and they must fit in the head in such a way, that you do not see ears at all! The easiest to obtain this result is to put the dog on a small show lead and fix the show lead to the trim arm of your grooming table, then scissor the head while the lead is around your dog's neck, it will automatically pull the ears in the right position for trimming.

Trimming of the front and front legs

As with the rear, also the front should be a straight line from the shoulders down to the feet. The front should not be wider than the head. The front legs look the nicest, if the shape becomes slightly wider down to the feet.

Below a picture of my dog Iris trimmed for a Championship Show. As she is small, I left her coat much longer, and not without success because she won that show!

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