The Bichon Frise is a tiny and cute dog that is most recognized for its round face. The name, Bichon Frise, is derived from the French language name “bichon a poil frise” which translates to curly haired dog. The Bichon Frise has an all white coating with a black nose. If you aren’t sure about how to groom a Bichon Frise, this process will help you with that. So, I encourage you to keep on reading down below.
The Process Of How To Groom A Bichon Frise
1. Brush Your Bichon Frise’s Hair
Your Bichon Frise has a dense double coating with curly hair of a medium length. Also, your Bichon Frise technically sheds hair, but, instead of the dead hair falling down on the floor or furniture, they get stuck inside of his/her coating.
Because of all of this, you will definitely be dealing with a lot of matting. So, you will need to brush your Bichon Frise’s coating frequently in order to fight off the mats. Ideally, you will be brushing your Bichon Frise’s coating daily.
But, if you aren’t able to brush your Bichon Frise’s coating daily due to scheduling conflict, you should do it no less than three times per week. If matting isn’t addressed, it will start to pull at your Bichon Frise’s skin which can be painful for him/her.
Before you start brushing, I recommend that you get a brush that is effective at collecting all the mats from your Bichon Frise’s dense and curly haired double coating without scratching his/her skin in the process.
The Hertzko Self-Cleaning Slicker Brush is a popular option that comes with a self-cleaning button that you can press in order to easily clean out the mats from the brush.
In order to have the best results with removing the mats from your Bichon Frise’s coating, you will want to brush upwards away from his/her skin. Because of that, I recommend that you get your Bichon Frise to lay down on one side in order to making the brushing easier.
So, if you aren’t sure how to get your Bichon Frise to lay down, you can head here in order to learn how to do that. Start out by brushing your Bichon Frise’s main body then move on to brushing his/her face, legs, and tail.
2. Brush Your Bichon Frise’s Teeth
All dogs need to have their teeth brushed and your Bichon Frise is no exception. Brushing your Bichon Frise’s teeth will stop tartar buildup from happening because if it is left unaddressed, it can lead to tooth decay which isn’t good for the dog.
Veterinarians often recommend that dog owners get the Virbac toothpaste for brushing their dogs’ teeth. So, you will want to go along with that. You can use a toothbrush to brush your Bichon Frise’s teeth. Be sure and brush your dog’s teeth regularly – ideally daily.
3. Bathe Your Bichon Frise
Your Bichon Frise should be bathed once per month, but you don’t want to do it any more often than that because doing so will strip the natural oils which nourishes his/her skin and coating.
Also, given that your Bichon Frise has an all white coating, I recommend that you use a whitening shampoo. But, beware of any whitening shampoos that include chemicals like bleach and peroxide as these can damage your Bichon Frise’s coating and dry out his/her skin.
One of the best whitening shampoos that I can find is the Veterinary Formula Solutions Snow White Dog Shampoo. With the shampoo in hand, bring your Bichon Frise to your bathtub and use a cup filled with warm water to get him/her all wet in preparation for the shampoo.
Now, thoroughly apply the shampoo onto your Bichon Frise’s coating in a lather. Be sure to avoid your Bichon Frise’s eyes with the shampoo because that can be irritating for the eyes.
With the shampoo applied, rinse your Bichon Frise’s coating until all traces of the shampoo are gone. With the bathing over, dry out your Bichon Frise with a bathing towel and then re-brush his/her coating.
4. Trim Your Bichon Frise’s Hair
If you dread having to brush your Bichon Frise’s coating daily, you may want to trim his/her hair as doing so will reduce the amount of mats that you have to deal with. Before you trim your Bichon Frise’s hair, you will want to make sure that you have one of the best clippers that you can get.
With that in mind, I recommend that you get the Andis UltraEdge Super Detachable Blade Clipper AGC2. This is a powerful clipper that can handle just about any coating, including the dense and curly haired double coating that your Bichon Frise has.
Even with all that power, this clipper stays remarkably cool for an extended period of time which is important as you don’t want to trim your Bichon Frise’s hair with a hot clipper.
The clipper also stays quiet while it is being used which will help if the noise of a clipper scares off your Bichon Frise. There are different levels of blades available depending on how short you want your Bichon Frise’s hair to be.
A general rule of thumb is that the higher the blade number, the shorter the hair will be after it has been clipped. The clipper that I just mentioned comes with blade number 10. So, if you want a different blade number, you will need to buy it separately which you can do here.
There is one place that you may want to leave alone when trimming your Bichon Frise’s hair and that is his/her face. That is because leaving your Bichon Frise’s face alone as is will allow him/her to retain the round face that makes him/her highly recognizable.
As you are trimming your Bichon Frise’s hair, make sure that you trim the hair on the front ears and among the paw pads. Trimming the hair inside your Bichon Frise’s ears will allow for better air flow and make the ears easier for you to clean.
Trimming the hair among your Bichon Frise’s pads will make the walking easier for him/her. You can trim these areas with a pair of scissors. Just be careful not to point the scissor directly at your Bichon Frise when trimming these two areas.
5. Clean Your Bichon Frise’s Ears
Just in case I hadn’t brought this up yet, your Bichon Frise needs to have his/her ears cleaned out in order to prevent wax buildup inside the ears. It isn’t a good thing for your Bichon Frise to have wax gathering inside his/her ears as that can lead to ear infection.
Veterinarians often recommend the Virbac ear cleaner to dog owners for their dogs’ ears. So, you will want to go along with that as well. You can apply the ear cleaner to cotton balls and then use them to clean your dog’s ears.
6. Clip Your Bichon Frise’s Nails
As is the case with any other dogs, your Bichon Frise needs to have his/her nails clipped short. That is because you don’t want your Bichon Frise’s nails to be too long as that can cause pain to his/her paws which can impact the way that he/she walks around.
You can use a nail clipper like Millers Forge Dog Nail Clip to clip your Bichon Frise’s nails. Be careful not to cut the quick part of your Bichon Frise’s nails as that can easily result in bleeding.
Concluding How To Groom A Bichon Frise
There you have it for how to groom a Bichon Frise. If you are struggling to get your Bichon Frise to cooperate with you during grooming, I recommend that you read this post for some things that you can do to gain his/her cooperation for the grooming session.
What are your thoughts? Have you groomed a Bichon Frise before? Feel free to leave a comment down below.