Proper grooming techniques give a boost to your Gordon Setter’s competitive edge in the show ring. Knowing how to accentuate your dog’s best points by trimming him so they shine through can improve your win record. If you’ve seen Will Alexander in the ring with a Gordon you’ve witnessed that every dog he shows is beautifully presented, groomed to perfection. I’ve seen Will in action and have admired his skill for decades so I’m sharing the link to his course on Setter grooming with you. For a relatively low cost your subscription to the course will give you unlimited access to this self paced, visual grooming reference for as long as you like. Perfect your skillset with professional guidance!
Sally Gift, Mesa AZ
Click the blue link below and a new window will open taking you to the course. Don’t let the English Setter fool you – Will knows Gordons and covers them too!
This course is an introduction to the basics of trimming all four of the setter breeds.
You will learn the subtle differences between the English, Gordon, Irish and Irish Red & White Setters.
From Clipper-work, to carding and raking you will learn skills that will be valuable to you no matter what your skill level.
You will learn when and where you should use various tools such as; thinning shears, knives, stripping stones.
Knowing why we are trimming hair off in different ways is as important as how to do it. Will explains how the setter’s furnishings should be an extension of your setter’s bone structure and how to create the most anatomically correct version of your setter through trimming.
Stay tuned as we bring you each breed in greater detail.
Your Instructor
William Alexander
Will’s family bred and showed Irish Setters (his father still breeds them), and as a junior Will bred English Cockers. Will made his ring début at the age of seven with one of his father’s setters, and from then on he was very active (and successful) in Junior Showmanship, and the breed ring, with a variety of breeds.
Will always wanted to be a handler, but before embarking on a handling career he worked for Garry MacDonald here in Canada, and for Bobby Stebbins in the States – gaining experience, honing his skills, and perfecting his craft…
Will started handling professionally in 1986, and in 1987, took the Irish Setter Ch. McCammom Impresario to Top Dog All Breed.
This also set a record as the youngest handler to have a Top Dog All Breeds.Will is one of only 5 handlers,
who has had more than one Top Dog All Breeds
Will has had a dog in the Top Ten All Breeds since 1991!
Will is often referred to as the “Wayne Gretzky of dog shows”, Will is proudly Canadian and arguably the most recognized professional handler in Canada!
Will is now a published author, his book “For the Love of Dogs” was published in 2014.
Will had the honour of winning Best In Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show 2015
with the beautiful Beagle bitch, Am/Can. Ch. Tashtin’s Lookin For Trouble, aka Miss P
From pro-handler Will Alexander a You Tube video chock full of tips about prepping your Setter for the ring on show day. While Will is working on an English Setter in this video, his tips for brushing and grooming are fantastic and will help make your dog look like a million bucks! Will’s posted many more tips and tricks on You Tube for those who seek more, check it out! Thank you Will for this fabulous site.
I feel like I’ve been knee deep in black dog hair for the better part of the last four decades, and I’m not talking about those little black haired dust bunnies that whisper along the tile floor in the hallways of the house. I’m talking big, honking piles of hair that I’ve clipped, stripped, scissored and thinned off the bodies of my Gordon Setters to ready them for the ring. I kid you not, there have been times when I have built a whole other Setter out of the hair left on the floor. Good grief these dogs grow coat, acres and acres of it so that sometimes I find myself thinking “I’m gonna to get me one a them big ole John Deere mowers to tackle this petting zoo”.
Photo by Bob Segal
Well obviously most of you own a Gordon Setter so you know what I’m talking about when I say that they take a bit of grooming to keep them looking less like a Newfie and more like a Setter. And, if you’re heading to the show ring you probably know by now that a proper groom makes a world of difference in your chances for success. Groom that dog poorly or trim him the wrong way and you can end up accentuating or creating faults you don’t want seen. Bad idea.
It is not easy to learn to properly groom a Gordon for the ring, and I for one, will admit that even after all these years I am always learning. New things come along, methods change, equipment is developed, it’s a never ending learning curve. Sometimes I feel like my grooming skill is no better now than when I was in grade school cutting doll hair with those little rounded kiddie scissors. Did you ever notice that doll hair doesn’t grow back? My sisters did. They weren’t very happy with me. Sibling rivalry I guess?
Photo by Bob Segal
Grooming can be complicated, but it will get a whole lot easier if you start with a clear picture of the dog’s anatomy, the dog breeder’s basic knowledge, and using that mental picture of your breed’s anatomy as your guide when you’re trimming, stripping or thinning your show dog should help you sculpt that dog into a lovely picture of the standard. To give an example, sometimes we might groom what appear to be faults onto the dog by leaving a vertical line of stripped hair going straight down the dog’s side from the bottom of neck to the foreleg. In fact we want to show angles there, the angle where the shoulder and upper arm meet, so there should be a sideways V shape to that line. Leave a straight line down the side of the dog when you’re stripping out coat and the judge will see a straight front, one that lacks proper angle of shoulder to upper arm. It’s an optical illusion that can hurt your chances of winning. Or, ignore trimming the under body coat to into soft flowing lines, leaving instead shorter or longer coat in the wrong area and you destroy the flow of the Setter’s natural body contour, he looks unbalanced and a maybe a bit box or tube shaped, not the picture we’re looking for.
I found a grooming blog, Beyond the Fur… written by Melissa Verplank who published an excellent article The Importance of Canine Anatomy and it teaches about using the structure of the dog to set a pattern when grooming. This is right on the money and I highly recommend, especially if you are a new learner, that before you begin grooming your Gordon Setter, particularly for the show ring, that you take the time to read this article and review her diagrams. You absolutely must have an ideal picture of the structure of a Gordon Setter in your mind in order to properly scissor and strip and shape that body coat. And you must keep that picture in mind so that when you step back away from the dog to view your work, you are seeing all of the excellent qualities you want a judge to notice about your dog.
Here’s the link, simply point and click, a new window will open on her site:
Earlier articles that were published here on Gordon Setter Expert about grooming can be found here for those looking to get started grooming their own dog.
Hope you enjoy these articles. We’re gearing up to come back from the GSCA National with some great “how to” videos of exhibitors grooming their dogs, we’re sure that we’ll find some great Gordon Setter folks who will share their tips and tricks with you.
We are dedicated to building a knowledge base and a sharing site for those who are involved in all of the various aspects of competition with Gordon Setters, competitions that showcase the Gordon Setter’s Beauty, Brains and Bird-Sense.
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