Stripping the Hindquarters
Part One

All four-legged animals have four legs! This is fact, and one that you may well deplore when you start trimming the hind ones. "How come" you ask? Aided by your lucid articles, I have successfully trimmed my dogs front legs!!" "Ah hah," I reply, "but the hind legs are full of Angles, Bulges, and Curves!" We might well call them the ABC's of the rear legs, and it is truly amazing the endless variation these ABC's can present. To illustrate what goes on, stand up - put your weight on your left leg - now place your right foot so only the toes are in contact with the floor, - you will have to bend your knee to keep from spradling , or losing your balance! Have you done that? Good! This is the dogs hind leg!! From your hip joint to your knee is the dog's first thigh; your kneecap is replaced by the dog's stifle, and from your knee to your heel is the dog's gaskin or second thigh. Your heel is the dog's hock; from the heel to the ball of your foot is the dog's rear pastern. The ball of your foot and your toes are your dog's foot!! You see, nature makes endless variations on one theme.

The correct trim for your individual dog will depend on you! Since you're not vastly experienced, you must experiment with leaving more hair here, less hair there, until you have achieved the best look for YOUR animal. Here again I will encourage you to STUDY the illustrations as they present the "look" that you will be striving to achieve, AND some "looks" to beware of! Speaking of "beware," please note the area between your ankle bones and where your Achilles tendon joins your heel. This area on your dog consists of little else but skin. Indeed, on some of the short-haired, thin-skinned breeds, the light of the sun will shine through this area. Since this is composed of little else but skin, the hair is extremely slow to grow, and sparser than the rest of the leg. Not having enough hair here will dish out the rear-view outline and make your dog look "hocky" (another term for cow-hocks). So we just barely pull enough hair here to prevent little "scraggly" hairs from sticking out.

We're going to start on the rear, and here's another of those areas where the hair grows in all possible directions at once, and we turn into contortionists (see illustration). You've already trimmed in back of the "hips" down to the point of the buttocks, now
we will take off all the hair in the "center," directly around the anus, and above and around the top of the scrotum. (see step-one ) Since I strip my dog’s scrotum, I do it too, HOWEVER, all dogs and many people prefer to clip his hair, and you may too. If you chose to clip, this may be left until later. Now you will assume the same position as you would to strip the back of the dog's tail, commence again holding the tail firmly in an upright position. This will hold the skin firm. Start at the area surrounding the scrotum and work up to the anus. As the dog becomes more and more restless, you may strip the inside and back of the first inner thigh. Goodness gracious, are these areas EVER tender!! But your dog's going to HAVE to learn to stand up while this is being done. But do take as few hairs at a time as possible.

These areas are stripped VERY CLOSE. (see step-one)

You will notice that the hair from the outside of the leg grows in to meet the hair growing from the inside of the leg. Remember the "meeting" place on the upper sides of the neck? Same thing! And in this case it is very important NOT to allow the hair from the "outside" to grow to far towards the inside! If you do, this will make the dog look a bit pear-shaped in the rear - definitely the wrong "look"! A rather neat trick is to take a piece of your block chalk and draw a line from the outside edge of the root of the tail, through the center of the "crown" on the point of the buttocks, then extend this line (it's at a bit of an angle) to the outside edge of the back of the leg. This, if it's done correctly, should bring you to the top of the bend caused by the second thigh! Now, still working on the back of the rear leg, remove the hair on that side of the line that is towards the inside of the leg. All the hair should now be off the rear, inside of the upper thigh, and the back of this portion to the "line". (see step-one)

Now shape the hair on the side of the line towards the outside of the leg, so there is fullness at the outside of the back of the leg and the hair tapers to nothing at the line. Although this pulling is done from in back of the dog, you must step to the side of the leg you're working on, frequently, to be sure you are maintaining the proper outline (this is a word you will be hearing abundantly from now on). You will now come down the back edge of the leg, all the way to the hock! (see step-two) You will be extremely careful so as not to remove too much hair from the outside edge, as this will dish the outline. However, you will discover, by standing at the side of your dog for viewing, that more hair should be removed from the edge of the inside of the leg! Just the edge mind you! You will note that these hairs have a tendency to stick out and make the outline messy.

At this time you will take the hair off the inside edge of the "cap" that forms the hock. NOT TOO LARGE AN AREA!! You clean off an area about the size of the ball of your little finger and at the same time the top of the hock - NOT THE BACK of the hock, Dum Dum!

Study the rear view illustrations.

At the same time that we are working on the back of these legs, we are also going to be doing some trimming on the sides, and this will be done while we are standing IN BACK OF OUR DOG! Study Step 3 of the rear view illustrations. The shaded or crosshatch areas are the areas to be worked on at this time. Notice that I've done the outside first thigh to blend in with the hips, also the inside of the leg all the way down to the foot; started shaping the outside of the second thigh and have started shaping the outside of the foot. If you will study the illustration that shows the leg inside the hair, you will have a better idea of what we are trying to accomplish. Now is when better have practiced using your left hand as the outside of the left leg will be initially shaped by your left hand. Remember how I taught you to pull a few hairs by using a "rolling" motion of the thumb against your forefinger? With this same motion again! So your left hand will be using this motion on the left leg of your dog and your right hand will do the same to the right leg. The inside portion of the legs may be done in the following manner: if you are working on the inside of the left leg, you will stand on the right side of your dog. Lift the right leg up (this is more easily accomplished with males who are used to "heisting their leg." But with the females it is a bit more difficult, but this is the position your dog should be in! I lift the right leg with my left hand so that my right hand which is more dexterous, is left free to strip.

It is my earnest hope that during all of this you are combing and brushing these furnishings as you were taught to do on the forelegs. Here the principal applied is the same as the one we used to trim the inside of the front legs. Again we are looking for a straight vertical line. We even have the "ankle" joint, which presents the same bunch of hair the "wrist" joint did. At this time, however, since this is the hind leg, we will concentrate our vertical line towards the back of the leg, and extend it from the end of the close-stripped area of the first thigh, to the ground! This is done with a medium or coarse stripping knife.