The Benefits of Dog Grooming

Dog grooming covers a range of different maintenance procedures that help to keep your pooch in good condition. The following processes can all be considered part of dog grooming:

Even small things you might do every day like wiping tear stains away or cleaning their paws after a walk all come under the umbrella of dog grooming. In effect, it’s almost anything you do that helps to keep your dog looking their best.

Whilst all dogs need different levels of grooming and may need different treatments, every furry family member will need some degree of maintenance, including grooming. Short coated dogs will still shed and curly coated dogs may not but they still need plenty of brushing. It’s rare to find a dog that doesn’t need the occasional nail trim and they might be low maintenance now but as they grow older and get out and about less, they may need more help to keep nice and clean.

While our feline friends might keep themselves clean, dogs aren’t as good at bathing themselves. While dogs do groom themselves, you will usually only find them managing their easy to reach areas like their paws and often only when they need to. Your pooch may clean a dirty paw here and there and nibble at their coat to get an itch but they don’t spend nearly enough time grooming themselves to negate the need for a bath and a brush.

Grooming your dog, be it at home or getting them done professionally comes with a number of benefits. For starters, it helps to keep them fit and healthy. They won’t be putting weight on the wrong part of their paw because their nails are too long or growing a yeast infection in their ears without anyone knowing until it’s quite far along.

All dogs will need some amount of grooming to help keep them comfortable but it can also benefit both you and your house to keep them nice and clean.

Getting your pooch brushed and bathed can really help limit the amount of fur you find on your clothes or around the house. Without regular grooming, the fur that becomes loose in their coat tends to just sit on the surface, intertwined with all of their healthy fur so that it drops away gradually when they’re handled or they rub against a surface. This is how you come to find those beautiful balls of fur hiding in the corner of the living room like tumbleweed.

Regular brushing and bathing strips away the shed fur so there’s much less in their coat to be spread around their environment. Deshedding tools like the FURminator come in different sizes for various coats and help to get out all of the loose furs before they either get stuck or fall out themselves. Finding the right brush to help maintain their coat is important and many dogs enjoy the sensation of being brushed. It helps to remove any dead skin that can be quite itchy and spreads all the natural oils through the coat.

When you take your pooch to a professional groomer, they tend to use a combination of de-shedding shampoo, brushing and blow drying to really get in deep and remove dead fur.

Without regular brushing, their coat can become knotted and loose fur becomes tangled with their healthy coat, which can cause tight little mats. Matting can be quite hard to detect initially, especially if you’re not regularly grooming your pup so you never really come into contact with them. Mats tend to develop in slightly more obscure places than where you pet your dog every day. Behind their ears, and beneath their legs are both areas that owners can often miss.

The longer these mats remain in place, the more fur they collect and the tighter they become. Groomers are often able to brush smaller mats out but in situations where they are very close to the skin and may have been there a while, they might need cutting out. Mats pull on your dog’s skin and can become very sore with time.

Through using shampoo, conditioner and even a doggy spray, grooming helps to keep your pup smelling fresh. Regular bathing and brushing will remove all of the dirt they can gather from their walks and stop any buildup of grime. Many of our beloved pets love to run through or roll in whatever they find out and about so frequent grooming will help remove any dirt and get them smelling fresh again.

Grooming doesn’t just help your pooch keep clean but it’s vital for keeping them healthy as well. While grooming them, you will often pick up on issues that you may not have noticed otherwise. You may find the start of an ear infection, hot spots or sore patches on the skin or just dry areas that would benefit from an extra moisturising shampoo treatment.

Even if your grooming routine at home is limited to just having a pack of wipes to remove excess dirt between their paw pads after a walk. You can find gentle wipes like Johnsons Eye & Ear Wipes to help remove any tear staining and keep their ears clean which also gives you the opportunity to make sure their eyes and ears look nice and healthy.

If you want to treat your pooch to a pamper and make sure their skin and coat are all in tip top condition, you can book a treatment with The Jolly Groomer. For professional care without the hefty price tag, you can customise their treatment to their needs and make sure they’re not only smelling great but their nails are kept nice and trim, along with clear eyes and ears so you don’t have to worry about keeping on top of everything yourself.

For everything you need to keep your pooch fresh and all of your other puppy and dog essentials, take a look in store and online.