My 6-month-old American Cocker Spaniel had beautiful long eyelashes. During a recent visit to the groomer, the eyelashes were accidently cut while the face was being trimmed. Therefore, they had to be evened out and are not very short. Please tell me they will grow back!

Hi Sassismom, I too have American Cockers, but I groom mine myself.

I have three in full show coat, and three in short pet trim. The eyelashes are meant to be trimmed short. It's neccessary for a sleek well groomed look. It is fairly common for the breed to have disticiasis (sp) the lashes can grow in any and every wayward direction, so keeping them as short as possible reduces the chance of them irritating the eye. I take them off with the electric clippers, I use a 15 oster blade to trim under the eye and I just carefully allow the blade to skim the lashes off at the same time.

The lashes will definately grow back, but it's much healthier from a hygiene point of view to have them short. The breed is also prone to reduced tear production, and the eyes can become quite clogged up with mucus in the mornings, long lashes just makes this worse.

Dawn R.

PS. Please come back and talk about your Yankee, there are a few American Cocker owners on here. I have two males and four females. Three blacks, two black and tans and one buff.

I've just got the 1 buff, and 2 Cavaliers. What colour's yours? I usually do trim my boy's eyelashes, but they won't do it if you ask them not to (excepting accidents of course!). Once I had to take nearly all the topknot off cos he moved just at the wrong moment, and I had to even it up!!