OK. Let’s get started.
The blue part you’ll be either shaving or stripping, depending on your preference.
The green will be scissored. The stripe down to the nose helps the beard lie flat on top, and scissor into the corner of the eyes because it’s hard for the dog to see around the bushes that grow there. Some people are adamantly against scissoring the top of the muzzle, preferring to train the beard hairs to lie down.
Pink is the scissored part of the beard and eyebrows.
There are four directions we need to take care of to make a nice eyebrow. We got the first one with the clippers. The eyebrow hair starts an inch behind the eye so you shaved or stripped the skull to that point.
The second direction is out to the side past the cheeks.
Comb the eyebrows out to the side just like you did with the beard. Put your scissors flat on the cheek, perfectly vertical, and scissor off any brow hair that sticks out to the side. No mercy. If it’s going to EVER stick out to the side, cut it off, BUT don’t curl your scissors over toward the top of the head. Keep them pointing straight up!
Looking at the diagram above, you’ll notice that the hairs close to the outside of the eye have been cut off very short, while the hairs closer to the inside of the eye have been left longer. Perfect. Nothing will stick out to the side to mar the appearance of the brick. When you’ve done the eyebrows a couple of times, you can decide if you want to leave those inside hairs a bit longer – then point the tips of your scissors away from the dog a bit when you come to them.
You’re so brave.
The third direction is straight up.
This is a profile. The dog is standing in front of you facing to your right.
Comb the eyebrows straight up. The longer hairs around the eye can fall forward, but the stuff above the eye goes up. Put your scissors flat on top of the dog’s skull and cut off any hair sticking up above the line of the skull.
The fourth direction is looking straight down on the dog’s head.
Comb the hair straight forward. Anchor your scissors on the bone at the outside of the eye and use the scissors to draw a line straight from there to the nose. Cut along the line.
As you can see in the drawing, if your line goes to the middle of the nose (left), you’ll get medium-length eyebrows. Aim for the near side of the nose and you’ll get long brows (middle), and aim for the far side for short brows.
When you’ve taken care of the beard and all four directions of the eyebrows, you’ll get the photos below – producing a head that’s “Strong, rectangular in appearance, and elongated”. A brick.
