Cultural phenomenon, Creative Pet Styling Competition, is catching on at Zoo Russia 2010

A very new market niche in the Russian pet sector has recently come up and is on a steady rise, mainly due to the appreciation of dog stylists creatively grooming pets for fun or competition. Unlike traditional pet grooming, creative pet grooming incorporates trimming the fur of animals to create a desired design on their coats. Poodles are the favored animals for these creations because of their easy to rear coats. Russian groomers mastered basic techniques of cleaning the animal, making sure that the animal's coat is tidy by shaving when necessary and clipping paw nails. These days grooming in Russia is not just about that, it is about creating different looks for the animal and even printing designs on its coat. Zoo Russia 2010 organizers drove the stylists to have their pets creatively groomed for fun and competition. The patterns used by Creative Pet Grooming Competition 2010 included: dragon, tiger and fish.

The creative look came off perfectly on poodle mainly due to their predisposition to grow long hairs on their coats and creative effort of the pet owner. The interesting thing is that the animals, when the groomers were through with them, actually looked like the real deal! The first prize for the creative styling competition at this year's Zoo Russia exhibition was given to Irina Smirnova, owner of the little poodle with the fish on its back, second prize received Irina Kulikova for her creative idea of dragon and the third one was given to Svetlana Nikitina, creator of the cute looking tiger-poodle.