On the back of the coat, I always use the Mason Pearson brush as it’s not quite as harsh as the Pin brush. Hold the coat down the way that you wanted to lie and brush. Carefully brush it layer upon layer. It’s important to pull the coat as straight as possible and if you feel it’s not quite straight enough, damp it again.

I’m holding the top coat back and making sure that all the underneath coat is dry first. At this stage, try and make sure you dry the tail as it always seems to get missed. You find with the Shih Tzu coat that you’ll lose less coat by grooming a clean coat than if you attempt to brush your dirty coat. We can now go to the front. You can sit up in my knee, now the top knot.

Try and dry this the way that you want it to go backwards and then back to the Mason Pearson that surrounds the whiskers. I’m always frightened around their eyes so be as gentle as possible. We can spend ages getting this part of the coat dry and by the next day, before they’re going to the show then they dripped all over their whiskers and beards. But there’s lots of little battery operated driers now on the market that they’re quite handy to take to the show just to blow the face but not very powerful obviously, like Nally. They just dry the facial hair.