The teddy bear trim that built a client base
Theo is a toy poodle in a teddy bear style, and he is Michelle Weber's most posted dog. He gets puppuccinos. He falls asleep during his face groom. He sits on Michelle's table every six to eight weeks and goes home looking exactly like he did last time - which is precisely the point.
About 80% of Michelle's clients are on two clips. The teddy bear trim is her most popular groom by a significant margin, and Theo is the dog she uses to attract more of them. This tutorial is about how she does the trim - but it's also about why a groomer who has been working for 24 years still thinks the teddy bear is worth doing really, really well.
Coat prep is where the groom is won or lost
Michelle is clear on this: the teddy bear trim lives or dies on coat prep. Before she picks up a clipper, the coat needs to be fully detangled, undercoat removed, and a finishing comb run through from root to tip. On a coat like Theo's - thick, with a lot of undercoat - skipping any of that shows up immediately in the finished groom. She washes in a volumizing shampoo and conditions only the tail - not the ears, because she wants volume. The whole wash and dry runs to about 45 minutes. The groom itself takes roughly the same again.
“Prep is key to this kind of coat. You need to make sure before you’re clipping that all your knots are out, a lot of your undercoat is out, you’re running the finishing comb through it.”
Legs first, then body, then blend
Michelle does the legs before the body - and the order is deliberate. The sequence she works in saves significant scissoring time, which on a groom she turns around every six to eight weeks matters. The four blade gives a velvet finish that's practical for dogs that wear harnesses, jumpers, or spend time in the water.
The head is built in three circles
Michelle has a clear framework for the teddy bear head that she works through in a specific order. The logic behind it is that if you set the shape in before you try to round it off, you get a much cleaner result. At the end she's looking for three circles - the head from the front, the head from the side, and the body from above.
Short ears that frame the face, clean around the mouth and eyes, nothing past the nose line. The ears in particular she keeps short deliberately - practical, youthful, and they don't mat.
“Short ears are practical and short ears make them look more youthful. And I find they just look downright cute.”
Column legs and a clean finish
The legs are columns - neat, round, no hair touching the ground, elbow sitting close. Michelle checks the elbow constantly because it's the detail that most often reads wrong when the dog is standing. She works with blenders to blend the line into the leg, combing through constantly, and finishes with thinning scissors to polish.
Her last checkpoint before the dog leaves: run fingers along the whole groom and feel for anything sticking out. It's a simple habit that catches the things the eye misses.
Michelle's tutorial on Theo is available to Members inside igroomhub, and also includes a microbite where Michelle talks through how she structures her time, manages her client schedule, and uses Theo to build her social media presence.
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