hand stripping

Question
I have five Border Terriers which I hand strip myself to a high standard. I want to start my own business hand stripping dogs. Could you tell me which breeds need hand stripping.
Thank you

Answer
Boy, I don't know that you would have much of a business since most of those stripped are show dogs, and most people who show stripped breeds either do it themselves or have their handlers do it for them. Most pet people are totally uninterested in having their dogs stripped unless they are someone such as yourself who loves the look and feel of a stripped coat.

There really are too many stripped breeds to list, but basically it is all the hard-coated terriers and some of the sporting breeds, such as the German Wire-Haired Pointer. Actually the spaniels and setters are stripped, too, but in a different fashion from the hard-coated terriers.

I will add that I once show-groomed wire-haired fox terriers for a year and a half for a well-known breeder here, and quit when we moved out to the country. Those dogs totally ruined my left hand (from holding the dog as I worked with my right) for quite some time because of carpal tunnel (I couldn't even cut my own meat!). Living in a wrist brace for several months improved my arm, and I am pretty normal now. HOWEVER, grooming someone else's possibly misbehaving dogs is NOT the same as working on one's own well-behaved dogs, let me tell you. Not all dogs take kindly to stripping, even if they were introduced to it early as young puppies.

Another bit of advice which I learned... charge by the hour, rather than by the job. Some dogs are SO easy to strip, while others are terrors. No way one should be paid the same for the easy dog and get paid less for the one which took much longer to do (and maybe bit you to boot)!