Wire Coat Grooming: Hand Stripping Versus Clipping

A Miniature Schnauzer and a wire haired terrier showing the harsh jacket a wire coat is stripped to keep

What a Wire Coat is

A wire coat is a harsh, bristly outer jacket sitting over a softer undercoat. The texture is the entire point of it. It was bred to shrug off thorns, water and dirt while a dog worked in cover, and it is also what gives a Schnauzer its salt and pepper depth and a Border Terrier its color.

Most terriers carry one. So do Schnauzers, Brussels Griffons, Affenpinschers, wire haired Dachshunds and Pointers, Airedales and Border Terriers, along with the American Wirehair cat.

A wire coat sheds by releasing dead hair from the follicle when it is ready, rather than dropping it continuously. That single fact is what makes hand stripping possible, and it is what makes clipping a permanent decision rather than a styling choice. There are two legitimate ways to keep this coat and they lead to two different looking animals. It is worth choosing on purpose.

Strip rather than clip.

Hand-stripping pulls the dead jacket out at the root and keeps the coat harsh and the color deep. Clipping cuts it off instead, and the coat comes back softer and paler every time. Both are valid choices; only one is reversible.

Also called

Broken coat, harsh coat

Clipping

Strip rather than clip

Matting risk

Moderate

What to brush with

Stripping knife for a stripped coat, slicker and comb between.

Hand stripping: what it is and what it asks of you

Hand stripping means removing the dead outer hairs by pulling them out at the root, a few at a time, with finger and thumb or against a stripping knife used as a grip rather than a blade. It works because a mature wire hair has already released its hold in the follicle. It is coming out anyway; stripping takes it now and in order.

Done at the right stage on the right coat, it does not hurt. The hair is loose. A useful check is whether a small pinch comes away with light, steady pressure. If it needs a tug, the coat is not ready and forcing it is genuinely uncomfortable for the dog, which is where stripping gets its bad reputation.

What it asks of you is time and money. A full strip on an Airedale or a Schnauzer takes several hours of continuous skilled handwork, it cannot be rushed, and it has to be repeated on a schedule dictated by the coat cycle rather than by the calendar. It also asks something of the dog, which is the ability to stand quietly for a long session, and that is a habit best started young.

What you get back is the coat the breed was supposed to have: harsh to the touch, weather resistant, dense, and holding its true color. On a black and tan or a salt and pepper breed the difference is obvious from across a room.

Clipping a wire coat is a one way door

A clipper cuts the hair shaft rather than removing the hair. The dead jacket stays in the follicle, and the blade shears through both the harsh outer coat and the soft undercoat at the same height.

Two things follow, and both are cumulative. The texture softens, because what you are left with is a cut surface of mixed coat rather than a full length harsh one, and each subsequent clip takes more soft undercoat and leaves less harsh jacket. The color fades, because the pigment in a wire hair is concentrated toward the tip, so cutting the tips off leaves the paler section behind. A jet black Schnauzer jacket goes charcoal, then gray. A rich red Border Terrier goes sandy.

This is not a reason to refuse to clip. Clipping is fast, cheap, comfortable for an older or anxious dog, and completely normal for a pet that is never going to a show. Plenty of well kept terriers are clipped for their whole lives and are none the worse for it.

It is a reason to know what you are choosing. Going from a stripped coat to a clipped one takes an afternoon. Going back the other way means growing out every clipped hair and stripping it out over multiple sessions across a year or more, and on an older dog the harsh coat may simply not come back properly. Decide deliberately rather than by drifting.

Rolling the coat versus stripping it out

There are two ways to run a stripped coat and the difference decides how your dog looks between appointments.

Stripping out means taking the whole jacket off in one session once it has blown, leaving the dog in its undercoat, and letting a new jacket grow in together. It is the show approach, timed so the coat peaks on a given date. Between times the dog goes through a genuinely scruffy stage, then a bare stage, then comes back in.

Rolling the coat means taking only the hairs that are ready at any given session and leaving the rest, so the jacket always contains hair at several stages. It needs a session every four to eight weeks rather than a big one twice a year, and it never produces a dramatic result. It also means the dog looks respectable all the time, which for a pet is worth more than a peak.

For almost everybody with a pet terrier, rolling is the right answer. Ask for it by name. A groomer who strips will know immediately what you mean and will tell you whether the coat you have arrived with can be rolled or needs to be taken back first.

Finding a groomer who strips

Hand stripping is a separate skill, it takes far longer than clipping, and a lot of salons do not offer it at all. That is not a failing on their part. It is slow, physical work that a busy salon cannot easily fit around a full book, and doing it badly is worse than not doing it.

Search for it explicitly rather than assuming. A groomer who strips will usually say so, will often specialize in terriers, and may work by appointment out of a smaller setup rather than a high street salon. Breed clubs and local terrier people are a reliable source of names.

When you call, ask three things: whether they strip or card, how long they book for your breed, and whether they roll coats. The answers tell you quickly whether you have found somebody who does this properly. A four hour booking for an Airedale is a good sign, not an expensive one.

Carding is worth understanding as the middle option. It uses a fine blade or a stripping stone to pull out dead undercoat while leaving the jacket alone. It does not maintain a full stripped coat by itself, but it keeps a clipped coat considerably tidier and harsher than clipping alone, and many salons that do not strip will happily card.

Dog and cat breeds with a Wire Coat

42 breeds with this coat, page 1 of 2

Affenpinscher

Harsh and dense, shaggier at the neck, head and legs, deliberately untidy

A harsh shaggy jacket meant to look untidy, on a dog that fits in one hand

Affenpinscher

Airedale Terrier

A hard dense jacket over a soft undercoat, with long furnishings

The largest terrier there is, and the biggest hand stripping job a salon will take on

Airedale Terrier

Australian Terrier

A harsh straight jacket about two inches long over a short soft undercoat

A harsh stripped jacket with a deliberately soft topknot sitting on top of it

Australian Terrier

Belgian Laekenois

Harsh, dry and tousled, deliberately unkempt, plucked rather than clipped

The wire coated Belgian, deliberately unkempt and never brushed smooth

Belgian Laekenois

Berger Picard

A harsh crisp shaggy coat about two inches long over a light undercoat

A shaggy dog that needs a brush a month, which is not what shaggy usually means

Berger Picard

Black Russian Terrier

Coarse, dense and tousled on the outside, with a beard and heavy eyebrows

A coarse tousled double coat and a full beard, on a hundred and thirty pound dog

Black Russian Terrier

Border Terrier

A close harsh jacket over a dense undercoat, with no furnishings

The plainest terrier there is, stripped two or three times a year and left alone between

Border Terrier

Bouvier des Flandres

Harsh, dry and tousled on the outside, with a beard and heavy eyebrows

A harsh tousled double coat that is stripped or scissored, and a beard that soaks

Bouvier des Flandres

Brussels Griffon

Rough: a harsh dense wiry jacket with a full beard, hand stripped

Rough and smooth in the same litter, one hand stripped and one needing almost nothing

Brussels Griffon

Cairn Terrier

A harsh shaggy outer jacket over a short soft undercoat

A working jacket meant to look natural, and the one terrier where a neat outline is wrong

Cairn Terrier

Dachshund

Wire haired variety

One breed with three completely different coats, and three different appointments

Dachshund

Dandie Dinmont Terrier

A crisp mixed body coat, roughly two thirds harsh to one third soft, stripped

A crisp body coat that is stripped, under a large soft silky topknot that is not

Dandie Dinmont Terrier

Dutch Shepherd

Roughhaired: dense, tousled and harsh with a beard, plucked not clipped

One breed in three coats, short, long and rough, with three different routines

Dutch Shepherd

German Wirehaired Pointer

A harsh flat lying working jacket with a seasonal undercoat

A wire coat that is a tool rather than a style, and is tidied rather than sculpted

German Wirehaired Pointer

Giant Schnauzer

A harsh wiry jacket with softer furnishings on the legs, beard and eyebrows

The same harsh jacket and beard as the Miniature, on a dog four times the size

Giant Schnauzer

Glen of Imaal Terrier

A harsh medium length tousled coat over a soft undercoat, stripped not clipped

A harsh coat that is stripped, on a low powerful terrier that is unusually quiet

Glen of Imaal Terrier

Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen

A harsh medium length tousled coat over a thick soft undercoat

A separate breed from the Petit rather than a bigger one, with the same rough coat rule

Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen

Ibizan Hound

The wire variety: harsh and rough, one to three inches, often with a mustache

Smooth and wire coats in the same litters, and a sighthound's thin skin either way

Ibizan Hound

Irish Wolfhound

Rough and harsh, wiriest over the eyes and under the jaw

A harsh rough coat that is raked and stripped, never clipped, on the tallest breed there is

Irish Wolfhound

Jack Russell Terrier

Rough and broken varieties: a harsh jacket with furnishings

Three coats in one breed, and only one of them behaves the way a terrier coat should

Jack Russell Terrier

Lakeland Terrier

A hard wiry weatherproof jacket over soft furnishings, beard and eyebrows

A harsh fell terrier jacket over soft furnishings, and the furnishings are the work

Lakeland Terrier

Miniature Schnauzer

A wire jacket and a set of furnishings, and one decision that cannot be undone

Miniature Schnauzer

Norfolk Terrier

A hard wiry weather resistant jacket over soft furnishings and a slight beard

The same breed as the Norwich until 1964, and the one with folded ears

Norfolk Terrier

Norwich Terrier

A hard wiry weather resistant jacket over soft furnishings and a slight beard

One breed with the Norfolk until 1964, and the one with upright ears

Norwich Terrier

The other coat types

Not sure this is the one you have? Part the coat to the skin behind an ear and compare.

Double Coat

Never clip

A soft dense undercoat under a coarser weather-resistant top coat. Huskies, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest Cats.

Double Coat

A Poodle and a Devon Rex, tight curl and soft wave, both coats that trap shed hair instead of dropping it

Curly Coat

Clips safely

Tight curls or a soft wool texture that traps shed hair instead of dropping it. Poodles, Bichons, doodle crosses, Devon Rex, Cornish Rex and Selkirk Rex.

Curly Coat

A Maltese and a Persian, long fine coats that keep growing rather than shedding out

Silky Coat

Clips safely

Long fine hair with little or no undercoat that keeps growing rather than shedding out. Yorkshire Terriers, Maltese, Shih Tzus, Afghan Hounds, Persians and Turkish Angoras.

Silky Coat

A Beagle and a Bengal, short flat coats where shedding is the issue and matting never is

Smooth Coat

Clips safely

Short hair lying flat against the body with little or no undercoat. Beagles, Boxers, Vizslas, Bengals, Siamese and British Shorthairs.

Smooth Coat

A Sphynx and a Chinese Crested, skin care rather than coat care

Hairless

No coat to clip

No functional coat at all. Sphynx, Peterbald, Chinese Crested and the Xoloitzcuintli.

Hairless

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