Bailey is a 20 month old working Cocker Spaniel with a lovely fine silky coat. As he had not been groomed before, the best choice to preserve the texture and colour of the coat was to handstrip. This involved carding our the coat with special carding knives and then pulling the long remaining hairs by hand so the coat sits flat. His ears were combed through with a banded comb to remove loose hair. The process takes a little longer than clipping but preserves the coat texture and colour. The result is a lovely glossy natural looking coat that does not go fluffy in between grooms. Bailey also had overgrown feet and so these were trimmed into a 'natural' style, taking care to remove any matts in between the toes and as his leg feathers were very fine, these were lightly trimmed. Bailey on his second visit found the whole experience of the rhythmic hand stripping and a touch of Reiki very relaxing - so much so that he fell asleep and had a snooze.