Havanese

NICKY WALLACE

RUBY

Little Ruby comes with a grooming puzzle. Six months after surgery, she still has noticeably different lengths on her legs where she was shaved and bandaged, and her mum is understandably keen to see her looking like herself again.

Nicky keeps Ruby at the lovely long length her mum prefers, using a violet attachment comb through her powder-puff coat, but adjusts her technique around those shorter areas to soften the difference. This is corrective grooming rather than chasing impossible perfection: working with the coat Ruby has today and helping everything look balanced while it grows back.

Equipment list: Clippers, slicker brush, comb, #30 blade, violet extension comb, scissors.

Part 1 | Blending away the evidence

Nicky starts with Ruby’s body, taking her time with the long attachment comb to get a smooth finish. When she reaches the uneven areas, she changes direction and flicks between lengths rather than simply taking everything shorter to match.

There’s also some thoughtful handling around Ruby’s recently operated leg. Nicky supports her carefully, avoids asking her to stand on it for too long and leaves some of the trickier balancing work for her scissors. A little tuck through the belly and another slow pass over the body starts bringing Ruby’s whole shape back together.

Part 2 | Column legs & a bit of corrective magic

Ruby’s long legs are finished by hand into soft column shapes, with Nicky showing how she builds a clean half-moon around the foot before creating those straight, parallel lines up the leg.

Then come the odd bits. One foot is shorter, another leg has been shaved for bandaging, and the surgery leg itself still has coat to grow. Rather than trying to make everything perfectly identical, Nicky carefully blends each area so the differences are far less obvious while preserving as much of Ruby’s length as she can.

She finishes by cleaning up around the rear and tail set, blending into the already-finished head and checking the underline. It may take another groom for every trace of Ruby’s surgery haircut to disappear, but she’s looking a whole lot more like Ruby again.