Brush Or Shave: The Option Is Yours
As a dog owner, you have probably heard millions of times that you need to brush your dog. So, you buy a brush and brush how you think is appropriate, but sometimes it turns out that the brushing you do is not enough- I know because before I was a groomer, I was the same.
I thought that brushing was skimming across the top of the back and down the sides. I didn't realise that the brush needed to be a little firmer than the one I had bought or that I needed to brush deep into the coat, and close the skin.
My dogs are my life, so if someone came up to me and said that I had to brush deep, the first thing I would have thought is how painful it would be for my dog! How could they suggest that? However, now I have been shown how to do it and educated on why this happens, I now know and feel differently about it.
Grooming tools aren't made to harm your dog, so my first piece of advice is to remove that thought from your head because sometimes we can be a little over-protective about our dogs' fur, but then rip a hairbrush through our own hair!
Secondly, we all know the UK is often a muddy bog and we spend a lot of time walking in the rain. Unfortunately, wet weather doesn't help our dog's coat condition at all, it encourages knots through the moisture in the air, which then clings to our dog's hair and gets trapped. This is especially hard to spot on curlier coats or double coats. So- after your walk in the miserable weather, it's time to brush!
I love watching my dogs play, they have such a great time! However, I brush after playtime as when they are playing tug or chasing after each other, saliva causes fur to tangle so after all that fun, a brush is needed.
Bath time seems like a time you can skip the brush, doesn't it? However, that's not the case. Washing your dog and then rubbing them dry causes friction in the fur which makes it tangle. More often than not, your dog probably gets zoomies and you want to get it over with so you don't even think about brushing- but to save that coat, it needs a brush!
Making it easier by brushing one of the four legs a day, body, head and tail. Voila one week and dog brushed all over!
Making sure you are proactively brushing as much as possible means you are lowering the chances of your dog needing to be shaved off when it goes to the groomer, and setting up a maintenance plan of 4-6 weeks for a groom will help keep that coat looking fantastic- without the need for what us groomers call a 7F!
I hope you have found this blog useful, and if you have got a brushing routine in place I would love to hear about it in the comments.
