Grooming: important for your dog's health and your dog-human bond

Lilly and mounds of fur.

Having shared my life with a Siberian Husky for the last 7 years, I am a huge proponent of regular grooming. Not going to the groomers necessarily, but brushing and cleaning on a regular basis. Certain dogs, like Siberian Huskies and German Shepherds, go through a seasonal "blow" twice a year where they shed their thick coats nearly fully and often in clumps. Other dogs, such as Labrador Retrievers, with shorter, less dense coats may shed lightly all year long. Both types of dogs require regular grooming!

Certainly, it's a matter of hygiene for your dog but also for your household to keep your dog relatively clean and well-brushed. Any fur you brush out in the backyard is less fur in your house. However, grooming a dog is also a bond-building experience for you both. A dog that trusts you to touch him during normal times will also trust you to touch him in the event of an emergency or when you need to remove something, like a sticker bur, from their fur. Dogs are very hands-on. They routinely touch one another and will feel a closer bond with their human who touches them regularly.

Touching and feeling of the dog to check for abnormalities should be a part of your regular grooming as well. Just recently, a friend of mine found a lump on one of her foster dogs during a regular grooming session. Fortunately, a biopsy of the lump indicated it was benign but it could easily have been a medical problem that needed quick assessment and treatment. Without knowing what is normal for your dog, you won't recognize when something is wrong. My personal dogs are all well-versed in allowing kind human touch all over, even in the sensitive locations like feet and tail. We initially taught this allowance by touching and treating, giving yummy treats as we worked brushing, trimming nails, and examining teeth. Start slowly and only groom for a few minutes at a time until your dog becomes familiar with your motions.

More mounds of fur.

Some dogs, my labbie included, love grooming so much that they will follow you around the house if you have a brush in your hand. These dogs are the easiest to groom, certainly, but all dogs can learn if you are patient and kind.

Tools for grooming are varied and the number is vast. Having groomed many dogs--Siberian Huskies, a Siberian Husky-Labrador Retriever mix, Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, many German Shepherds both long and short coated, and any number of short coated dogs--I can recommend the Furminator as the very best tool. The Furminator works especially well on dogs with thick undercoats. A regular pin brush is good for weekly maintenance and a Greyhound comb is excellent, but the Furminator can't be beat during a seasonal blow.

In addition to an occasional bath and weekly brushing, trimming toenails is very important unless the dog walks on asphalt or concrete surfaces on a regular basis. Even then, the dew claws often need trimming. If not trimmed regularly, nails become too long for the dog to walk properly and the dew claw can grow in a circle and back into the dog's pad. The most common trimming method is with a sharp nail cutter. However, from many dogs' reactions, I believe this hurts them. In our house, we use adremel rotary tool with a sandpaper attachment to sand the nails down. This is much easier on the dog and easier to control how low you go to prevent cutting into the quick and causing bleeding. Of course, you may initially need another person to help hold the dog as the noise of thedremel can be frightening. Treat the dog after each nail if you must. Once they become used to the dremel, they are much more relaxed during a nail trim than they ever are when the nail cutter comes out.

Teeth brushing, no dog or human wants to do this, but it truly is necessary. The more often you brush your dog's teeth, the less likely they will have gum disease or need a professional cleaning under anesthesia. Purchase yummy flavored dog toothpaste (never use people toothpaste for a dog) and use either your finger or a dog toothbrush, which simply has a longer handle than a people brush, to scrub their teeth. If you use good flavored dog toothpaste, they will try to eat and lick it certainly but they won't run away or fight the brushing. In addition to regular brushing, provide natural bones for your dog to chew to help keep the plaque cleaned off. Nylabones are good as well but dogs generally like natural bones more than plastic. Be certain to supervise when the are chewing any bone to make sure they don't break off a large piece and try to swallow it.

The tree has a 1.5 ft diameter.

For your amusement if you do not live with a Siberian Husky, the pictures at the right are of my dog Lilly and her most recent coat blowing. The white stuff on the ground is not snow or hail, as one friend thought, but fur, piles of fur. There are many such piles around the yard, but the fur isn't in my house!

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Email any comments or questions to the author at aprilmitchem@gmail.com.