How Do You Keep a Dog’s Coat in Good Condition?

If you follow the right tips during dog coat care, you will contribute decisively to the well-being and health of your four-legged friend. With regular care, you must take into account the differences between long-haired and short-haired dog breeds. The coat care is easier for you, as long as you start with it in the puppy age in a habituation phase.

Important basics of dog coat care throughout the year.

During the spring coat change, dog hair care is especially important with many dog breeds. During the rest of the year, however, you must not neglect dog coat care. For the well-being of your pet, it remains fundamentally indispensable that you regularly take care of the coat care. Otherwise, the dog’s hair often gets matted quickly. Damp washing is not part of everyday dog coat care and is only necessary in the case of unusual soiling or after a stay in salt water and germy waters.

Some areas of the dog’s body require special care. Especially on the inner thighs and the belly, the undercoat of a dog is often very dense and must therefore be combed out thoroughly. On the neck, thoroughness in combing remains just as indispensable. You usually move dog combs and brushes from the head to the tail. In the meantime, you work your way through the dog’s entire coat, strand by strand.

You can reach even fine hairs with high-quality brushes and thus enable the skin of your four-legged friend to better circulate and breathe, which is crucial for the formation of a natural protective layer. In addition, fleas, ticks and various health problems are usually easier to spot on a well-groomed dog coat. Therefore, with a regular coat care you increase the chance that possible diseases will be prevented or treated in time in the veterinarian’s office.

Different brushes for long-haired and short-haired dog breeds

The condition of the coat determines the specific requirements for grooming and, in turn, depends primarily on the breed of dog. For long-haired breeds, you need to groom the dog’s coat every day. As soon as fallen out hairs remain too long in the fur, otherwise felt forms quite fast. In addition to a natural brush, you often need wire brushes and combs for the grooming of long-haired dogs. By the wire variant you untangle the fur before the subsequent combing.

For short-haired dog breeds, grooming is required at least once a week. For you, a strong all-round brush with natural bristles or light metal bristles is often sufficient for relatively simple grooming with such breeds. Because the dog hair of short-haired quadrupeds usually falls out automatically after a certain length, you do not normally need to trim the coat of these animals.

Better acceptance by early start of the dog fur care

In order for dog grooming to be as quick and trouble-free as possible, you need to start very early. This is because older dogs are often very resistant and reluctant to grooming if they have never felt a brush on their own skin before. It is highly advisable to familiarize your four-legged friend with the dog grooming process while he is still a puppy. Then the care for your dog later belongs to the normality and triggers no fears or shocked reactions. Ideally, your pet will even enjoy grooming because you have already given him a positive feeling as a puppy and developed a social bond.

Special training for grooming in the habituation phase

If your young dog does not immediately react with joy to coat brushing, regular grooming training is recommended in a familiarization phase. In this way, you show your pet with targeted measures that you are doing something good with dog coat care. For such training, the following tips are worth noting:

It makes sense to schedule grooming training with weekly appointments at the beginning, thus integrating grooming as a routine into your daily routine. You must slowly introduce your dog to the routine of a typical grooming session.

Patience is especially important as long as your four-legged friend initially shows rather negative reactions. You endanger the success in the habituation phase, while you work too long or too fast with the brush. If the animal seems stressed, you must not simply continue brushing and thus leave an unpleasant feeling.

Otherwise, the dog’s unpleasant memories will make grooming much more difficult in the future. Playful methods are often extremely helpful in dog grooming training. For example, you have the option of rewarding your dog with treats after brushing. A careful and slow approach is also advisable when using grooming accessories.

In the beginning, a soft massage glove will give you a chance to treat the dogs coat very gently. Later, a brush will be used. Once your pet has become accustomed to the dog grooming process, accessories with thick comb teeth can also be used in many cases. By closely observing your dog’s reactions, you can tell if certain movements or brushing during grooming are uncomfortable.

Based on this, it is possible to adjust your behavior in the course of dog grooming.

Social reward for your own manual work during grooming

Even if you are under stress at work and have little free time, doing your own manual grooming is extremely rewarding for you. Because the social relationship between you and your four-legged friend develops decisively through the time spent together during dog grooming. During the care of the fur you express your affection from the view of your dog. At the same time you promote the pack formation and consolidate a hierarchy in the household. You will only benefit from this as long as you really take care of the dog’s coat yourself. You may save money by not having your dog groomed by others, and you will also be rewarded with a more intense relationship with your faithful companion.

Quick reaction to changes in coat condition

If the condition of the dog’s coat changes in an unfavorable way, you must react to it quickly. Especially a smelly or dull coat in many cases indicates a serious problem. If you do not notice any mistakes in grooming your dog yourself, it is advisable to consult a dog expert or a veterinarian.

Even with optimal care of the coat, sometimes other reasons are responsible for the dog hair shedding. Possible triggers are stress, a too high protein content of the dog food or missing nutrients. Smell, in turn, is often due to a denser than average undercoat. With suitable thistle oil or medicinal preparations from the vet, you can sometimes help a dull dog coat to regain its shine.