Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are popular pets and generally delightful to groom. Show dogs are not supposed to be trimmed at all except for the hair that grows between the pads on the underside of the foot, but many pet owners request shorter, more practical trims. For some, it is a short, uniform clip all over; others leave the natural back coat and trim up the long furnishings. Whatever pet style we groomers and the pet owners concoct, it can get tricky when cutting the breed's feet to match their shorter style because (let's be brutally honest here) this breed has funny-looking feet.
The breed standard states that "feathering on the feet is a feature of the breed." Indeed, a beautifully coiffed show dog looks absolutely perfect with the long feathering on their toes. It is somehow elegant and fits with the flow of the full ears, graceful tail, and sweeping coat on the legs and sides. The trouble comes when you start shortening up that body coat.
I have seen Cavalier's where the groomer has, for instance, clipped the entire coat with a #4 blade and trimmed the feet to match. But those feet! They are sort of flat and lacking substance, and when the hair is removed, they look like something a cartoon artist created badly.
What I have found looks better is to treat the feet as if they are entities all of their own, separate from the rest of the dog. What I mean by this is that I clip or scissor the body coat and furnishings as the customer requests. Lastly, I tackle the feet like they don't even belong to the rest of the dog. I trim and buff the nails as short as possible. Using a short blade (a # 10, 15, or 30), I very neatly trim the hair between the pads on the bottom of the foot. Next, I place the foot on the table so the dog stands naturally. I comb or brush all the hair out around the foot so it is evenly lying in the direction it naturally grows. Then I take a small, curved scissor https://www.petedge.com/kenchii-scorpion-curved-shears and neatly trim around the foot, trying to balance (not match, balance!) the remaining feathers to the length of the trimmed coat while still leaving some of the feathering because, as the standard states, it is a feature of the breed. I then go over the trimmed foot with a thinning shear https://www.petedge.com/mg-5200-series-thinning-shears to make the trimmed coat look more natural, with a softer finish. In other words, if you have clipped that puppy with a #4 blade all over, don't precisely match the feet to the coat. Shorten them, yes; keep a balance, yes, but don't make them match because… Cavaliers don't have pretty paws. Leave some signature fluff. You'll be glad you did.
