Educational Tips & Tricks

Maintaining your dog's coat in between grooming appointments is crucial to your dog's overall health and wellness! Lack of brushing and combing can result in your dog's coat getting matted.

 

Matted coats can cause a variety of skin and health problems. Matted fur does not allow for air circulation to the skin, causing hot spots, bacterial and fungal infections. Fleas, ticks, maggots and other parasites may be lurking in the coat causing further skin infections. Matted fur also pulls and binds, causing pain to your pet when they move or lay on the mats. The skin underneath is usually raw and inflamed. Matted coats also will not dry properly and can lead to rotting fur and skin.

If your pet is extremely matted, your dog’s hair may need to be shaved extremely short to the skin and may show signs of skin irritations and sores due to the matting, wet undercoat, and dirty coat. In order to take care of a dog that has not been groomed often enough, and is matted, the required grooming sessions may be long, stressful, or painful ( please note, more than one grooming session may be required if your dog is severely matted).

There is a strong possibility your pets skin will become irritated during the shaving process. The matted hair rests tightly against the skin and the only way of removing mats is to use a short blade to clip between the skin and mats.