Grooming dogs

This piece inspired today from our small dogs who all had a grooming session.

Today’s session was to get on top of coating dogs. Pugs and Frenchies are now moulting and they can loose a lot of hair. So first of all I used a zoom groom brush on the coat, its a rubber brush which takes out dead hair, but it doesn't break new hair, unless you over groom. Then I trimmed the nails, and never forget the dew claw. Lots of people leave this claw, but this claw is a claw that can catch and bust off if you dont keep it trimmed neatly. Just by trimming it short could save you a vet bill. I then have bacterial wipes, which I’m cleaning the folds on the Pugs faces, and around the frenchies fold under eye. I then checked that no whiskers were growing backwards into skin, if their were any close whiskers to the eyes, they were trimmed off. A hair can do a lot of damaged if rubbed into the eye ball. Their ears were cleaned with an ear cleaning products.
With frenchies you need to make sure their is no muck around the tail, as it can build up, so I first of all covered the dog in warm water, and mixed up a solution of ridesect as I wanted to give them a natural flea treatment as April is coming and fleas start to move. I used 1 part shampoo to 10 parts water, warm water. Mixed the solution in a mixing bottle, then squirted it all over the coat but left head. Massaged into coat. Left on the coat for a few minutes then rinsed thoroughly off. I then got some douxos3 anti bacterial wash, worked into a lather around the frenchie tail, and made sure I got it well into the underneath of the tail. This is a common place for infection to build up if you do not keep it cleaned. They call it frenchie pocket.
Then thoroughly rinsed. Checking the head using warm water with out getting into ears, then on a cloth some more douxos3 and then rinsed. Avoiding eyes, avoiding ears. If you find you cant do it as I suppose their is a knack to it, then dont use anything but water.
Now to dry the dog thoroughly. This is the time you can check skin, eyes, nose. Does the nose need nose balm if dried out and scaly. A pinch of thornit power in the ears and we are good to go. Also check teeth, do they need cleaning or not? Check to see if all teeth look okay. A frenchie or Pug has bizarre teeth even if I do say so myself. They have irregular teeth, and their bite is undershot. Some more than others. Just make sure nothing is sore or loose or rotten. If you find a tooth needing attention then you can get your vet to check. Teeth do need removing on small breeds as they get older. Not so much the Vizsla.

Now my dogs being active will probably need a bath again in 2-3 weeks time. My dogs are house dogs and when they smell they get bathed. You would bath a kennel dog probably twice a year, as it needs natural oils in the coat to repel water, and keep warm. But none of my dogs are hardy kennelled dogs, so there fore I can treat my dogs how I wish, and being an x groomer I like to have clean dogs. Our dogs love cuddles, and they love to get on our bed with us for a time. They live in close contact with us. I read all the time peoples opinions on. How often they should bath the dog and people get all arsy online about it. The truth is you can do it when you like. If your dog rolled in poo one day, then the next you can bath the dog twice. Its not going to kill the dog or harm the dog. So my advice is bath your dog when you think it stinks. If thats three times a year then great. But if its every 2-3 weeks thats still okay, you wont harm the dog. When I was trained in college the tutors owned collie dogs, and they bathed them every single week. Ive never seen such perfection in coats, those dogs coats were fantastic.

If your dog has skin issues, you can treat the skin issues during your bathing time.