The tail, we want to take short underneath the tail and the coat is always longer on the top of the tail because this shortens the dog out, okay? We’re going to blend all this furnishings in underneath the tail to shorten him up even more and we want a nice straight front.

So, the first thing I think I’ll do is I’ll do the tail, hold it very gently by the hair on the end of the tail, not by the bone because they won’t like it and they will just sit down. Gently ease the coat out, taking your comb from the bottom to the top, all right? Now, Oscar’s tail is too short. The length of his tail should be at least six to seven inches so we’re going to have to try and make it look a little bit longer. I like to use a slightly longer scissor when I do the tail because I think you got a better finish. We want to trim an inverted carrot shape so it’s wider at the base going up into a rounded tip. Okay we don’t want to point, we don’t want to see the end of the tail and I want to leave it quite long on the end there so that we give it the illusion of looking longer. So it comes into the balance with the rest of them.

So quite sure on the base of the tail, then what we want to do is do these two lines either side of the tail, wider at the base, coming up into a rounded carrot shape. It does pay dividends to spend a little bit of time on his tail because it can change the whole appearance and balance of the dog. I think there’s nothing worse than—I see west ters—and somebody has clipped the tail. And some west ters have these very long, thin—thin-boned tails and they look just so out of balance to me. Set the tail into the body, bring the tail level with the body and blend it in to the body line as I say Oscar’s got a quite low-set tail, it’s actually down there, and this is a little fact. He’s a little old man but we have to disguise that. You won’t even see it. I think this is what good trimming is all about really, it’s making the best of what you got, be it a little pet, I still like them to look the best they can. After all, if you're a professional groomer, these little dogs are walking adverts for you. And I know all of us do hundreds and hundreds of west ters, well I do, hundreds of west ters, but I really love trimming them. I think they’re a joy to trim, west ters.

So we’re going to round the tip off. We don’t want to point.