by Elizabeth Campbell

Created on: September 04, 2008

It's a pony, it's a monkey no it's a Chinese Crested! Anyone coming face-to-face with the hairless variety of the Chinese Crested dog will no doubt remember it for some time to come.

Keeping a Chinese Crested looking movie-star perfect can be a dream or a nightmare, depending upon the dog's degree of hairlessness.

All hairless Chinese Crested have hair on their head including muzzle, lower portion of the feet, and on the tail (plume). On a "true hairless" they will not have hair anywhere else. On a "moderately hairy hairless" they will have sparse hair on other parts of their body. On a "very hairy hairless" they will have sparse hair on most of their body, which may even get thick as a non-hairless in some locations.

To groom your Chinese Crested you will want to start with cutting their nails. Using a pet nail trimmer, or your own nail trimmer (if their nails are small enough) trim back the nail close to the quick (the blood supply) of the nail. If your Chinese Crested's nail is white then you can easily see the quick. If the nail is black then you must be more careful since you cannot see the quick.

Next, shave any hair that you do not want on your dog. For a show dog that is of the hairless variety, every area that is not supposed to have hair is shaved down completely smooth using a beard trimmer, followed by a men's electric razor or straight razor. For a pet dog, you will want to only use the beard trimmer as electric razors and straight razors can irritate the skin, and very easily cause razor burn especially on light-skinned dogs.

Now, it is time for a bath and you will wash them similar to how you would wash yourself! On the skin, you use a very mild hypoallergenic face soap. Anything very gentle will be appropriate. Wash them with a washcloth and rinse them thoroughly. For their hair, any type of regular shampoo is fine. Shampoo it just as you would your own hair. Because they stand on their feet (and their feet need washed) it gets them cleanest if you can get them wet, put the shampoo on, and then let them stay out of the sink or tub for about a minute while the shampoo does it work and you massage it in and just let it sit a bit. Then you rinse their hair, just as you would your own. Conditioner is not needed for most Chinese Crested although it certainly will not be determental in any way to use this on their hair if you would like.

Once the rinse is done then bathtime is over and it is time to towel off. Naturally dried hair will generally be very

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