Instructions
Brush and comb out your cairn terrier's coat at least twice a week and clip the nails as needed.
Clip off any straggly hairs on your cairn terrier.
Strip out the coat. Do not clip the entire coat if you plan to show your cairn. Clipping softens the coat and the coat will lose its hard wiry texture. Cairn terriers do not shed. Instead, the dead hairs accumulate in the coat. When your cairn is about 6 months old, start stripping out the dead coat by hand and continue doing this every 2 to 3 months. The Crooked Creek Cairn Terriers website recommends picking up a small section of hair with your fingers and pulling out the dead hairs with your fingers. Do this over the entire coat. The hair on the head should be stripped so that the hair left leaves a circle-shaped ruff. The top 1/3 of the ears are stripped and the tail is stripped so that it resembles a carrot.
How to Groom a Cairn Terrier for Show
The cairn terrier is a wire-haired terrier which, like most terriers, is full of energy and boldness. The cairn terrier originated in Scotland and is about 10 inches tall at the shoulder and weighs around 14 pounds. The show cairn, in addition to regular grooming, needs its coat stripped on a periodic basis.