I bought these to thin out specific areas of my dog's dense wooly undercoat.....she is a German Shepherd/ Belgian Tervuren mixed breed, but parts of her coat are like you see in Chow's and Collies. I did not want to clip or shave her----respecting the need for insulation and protection----but she wasn't getting dry after being in the pool. We are in Tucson, where it's bloody hot now.....she's an indoor dog who sometimes has pool privileges :-). I bought these chunking shears after doing some research and reading comments by experienced groomers. I am not a "groomer"----- but have groomed Goldens for many years and my equipment was not suitable for this dog....and although Goldens are often described as having a dense undercoat, I never had need to thin out a coat.I used these shears close to the skin for the thick undercoat on my dog's chest, neck, belly and hind quarters..... my regular thinning shears weren't doing the job and were getting ruined. These shears were GREAT for thinning out these areas ....my dog looks beautiful, but totally natural!  You'd never know that I removed a ton of hair :-) BUT----for the more superficial areas that need finessed cutting, like ears, leg and rear feathers, these shears were AWFUL......they left choppy obvious cuts, and the hair looked hacked, really bad! These shears are NOT suitable for finishing or fine detail!!! I will have to go over these areas with a much finer-toothed shears in order to blend. I frankly don't understand how some of the groomers  used them for this purpose.Bottom line, these are great IF used thoughtfully and with purpose.