During this time, we understand that your furry friend may be getting a bit too furry. While the salon is closed, we’d encourage you to do some home grooming to keep your pooch’s coat in the best condition you can. Most dogs, even those with shorter coats will benefit from a bit of extra brushing and combing. It’s a great way to bond with your dog too.
Here are some home grooming tips to help.
- Daily brushing is very important for your dogs coat because we can only clip beneath a matt, they cannot be brushed out without hurting your dog. Clipping out matts may mean your dogs coat needs to be much shorter than you might like at your next visit. Matts can also be uncomfortable for your dog.
- Gently brush the coat from root to tip by parting the coat and brushing small sections at a time. A slicker brush or pin pad are best, but any brushing is better than no brushing. If you only have a comb, you could use that too, but take care not to tug at the coat as this will hurt your dog. Pay attention to areas such as bottoms, under-arms and inner thighs as matts can be lurking. Take extra care with these areas as they will be sensitive.
- If your dog has no allergies, a little dot of hair serum or conditioner lightly applied to the coat might help your brushing. There’s no need to wash this out if only a tiny amount is used.
- For those dogs with long hair on the face, we’d recommend using a simple fabric ribbon or non-pull band to tie the hair out of your dogs eyes. If you need to bath your long haired dog, we’d recommend you only bath the essential areas as bathing could make matts worse.
If you feel that you do need to cut your dogs coat at home, please proceed with extreme caution. Dogs often fidget and move at exactly the wrong moment and accidents can happen. Ear tips, warts, tongues, pads and other important bits of dog anatomy can easily be snipped by mistake and no one needs a trip to the vets just now.
If you have any questions or need advice about keeping your dogs coat in good condition until we see you again, please ask and we’ll help where we can.