Having a pet puts several responsibilities on you. While they are capable of taking care of their own needs, living at home (even if they go out sometimes) places some limitations on their lifestyle. With dogs, they are more evident than, for example, with cats. You do not have to take cats out for a walk, but you have to take your dog out at least once a day to take care of its nature demands. That is only one of the aspects of having a dog.
Another important and necessary thing you should perform is grooming your dog. Mostly isolated from other dogs, your pet will need to compensate for that lack of communication with something else. You guessed right; grooming is one of the leading ways of making friends with your dog. Another factor making dog grooming particularly significant is that dogs are usually much more connected with people than other pets. However, that affection cannot develop on its own. Taking care of your dog is one way to show your dog that you are not indifferent to it.
How does grooming work? Imagine that your dog has a terrible itch. One of the ways to free your pet from that outstandingly annoying issue is to brush its coat. After the itch is gone, the dog will view you as some doctor. You have resolved the problem it was unable to get rid of itself, and that is one of the reasons grooming leads to the increase of affection.
Speaking of issues, prevention of illnesses is another huge reason for performing grooming regularly. If you do not brush your dog’s coat, that will probably result in some more severe problems with its skin, fur, or health in general. Bathing your dog is crucial as well as you cannot know what it has brought with it from outside. Although being outdoors doesn’t mean that your pet will get sick, taking measures for prevention of health issues is extremely useful and necessary.
Grooming is a way to communicate with your dog and monitor its condition as well. Socializing with you and other people is quite significant for your dog as it will allow you to cooperate with each other much more comfortable. If your dog does not let you touch it, how are you going to keep an eye on its health? That is why building close relations with your dog since its childhood is critical.
However, how do you groom your dog? Don’t worry as there is nothing too tricky about it. Today, you can learn so much about grooming your pets with the Internet. You will easily be able to find anything about the measures to take and tools and supplies to use. Besides, another great way of taking care of your dog is taking it to a professional groomer. An expert will surely know what is necessary and in that case. You can even ask for advice if you need it.
Today, we are going to look into dog grooming. We will examine the reasoning behind its necessity, present you with the types of tools you can and maybe should get for your dog. Besides, we will make a little comparison between home and professional grooming, so you know which one you should choose and why. You will hopefully get an overall idea of grooming and will be able to set the starting point in your search for tools for more efficient care. Make yourself comfortable as we are going to start right now by introducing the main reasons for grooming your dog!
Reasons for Dog Grooming
Socializing:
Grooming can help your pet become accustomed to being touched, making it easier for you to perform grooming in the long run. It can help both you and your pet relax. Besides, your dog will get acquainted with you better while you take care of its coat or nails.
Control over Shedding:
Shedding can be somewhat treated with regular grooming, although you probably won’t be able to resolve that issue altogether. In any case, with weekly baths and daily brushing, you will not have to worry about frequent cleaning works at your home. Regular brushing can reduce shedding as the brush stimulates oil-producing glands in the skin to keep it healthy. Keep in mind that sometimes it is better for your pet to be groomed by a professional, who will know the proper way of grooming specific to each breed.
Keeping Your Pet Healthy:
Regularly checking on an animal’s eyes, ears, and teeth can help you monitor the health of your pet. You can catch an illness by merely keeping an eye on your pet and checking its entire body during daily grooming sessions.
Dental Health:
Dental health of your dog has a massive impact on the overall well-being of your pet, so you should brush its teeth regularly. That will help you prevent tooth pain or any other issue related to teeth health. Besides, by keeping the teeth of your pet clean, you can avoid additional expenses on professional cleanings.
Appearance:
Pets like being groomed and tend to look better as well if taken care of your puppy. You can keep your pet in good condition by regularly performing such rituals as bathing, brushing its coat, clipping its nails, or any other ways of grooming. Matted hair and overly long nails surely won’t help your pet feel right!
Dog Grooming Tools and Supplies
If you have decided to groom your pet without visiting a professional, you can find plenty of tools and supplies out there just for that. To not get confused while looking into the vast choice of products, you will need to know what each of them is concerning. That is precisely why we are now going to present you with a list of tools and supplies you should know approximately.
Among those means of grooming, you will be able to find anything to make taking care of your dog much more comfortable and efficient for you and your pet. You can get various brushes, combs, dematting tools, shampoos, shower and bath accessories to let your pet feel and look much better. Should you waste time on getting acquainted with the wide variety of grooming tools? Of course, you should, as regular grooming will make it possible for you to avoid more severe problems in the long run.
So what do you need to know about tools and supplies to take care of your dog amidst?
Dog brushes
Most of the people first think of the coat of pets when they hear the word “grooming.” That is quite obvious as the skin is maybe the most crucial part of the body of your pet you will need to take care of hair. However, why is it so important? One of the reasons is shedding, which you can somewhat treat by regularly brushing your pet’s coat. Matted hair will make their body itch, which certainly doesn’t add more pleasure to their life. Finally, gorgeous hair means good appearance.
You will not have any problem with finding a good brush for your dog. Today, there are various types of dog brushes, each designed for its purpose. Besides, your choice of a brush will depend on the length of your dog’s hair and the issues you are facing and wish to resolve. So if you have problems with your dog’s coat, one of the ways to treat them is using a dog brush.
Dog Claw Care
Today, when many of the dogs are mostly kept indoors, taking specific care of their nails is an entirely necessary thing to do. Running outside on hard surfaces makes dogs’ nails gradually wear down. Claw care products reduce the need for regular nail-grooming sessions. However, at home, that quite helpful friction is almost absent from the lives of those pets.
Unkempt and long nails look unattractive, but that is not the most severe issue. Long nails will continuously touch the ground, resulting in force exertion back in dog’s nail bad and pressure on the toe joint. This can even realign the joints of the foreleg and make the foot look flattened.
That is not only a problem with aesthetics but functionality as well. To not compromise the weight distribution and joint health of your dog, you should think about taking care of its nails if your pet is more of an inside animal.In this case, you should look for a nail trimming tool (which can be a dull nail clipper or even trimmers and grinders).
Dog colognes
You might think that colognes and perfumes are useful for preventing the dog from smelling foul, but that is not entirely true. Colognes contain ingredients capable of moisturizing the coat of the dog, helping it to remain healthy. Besides, some products can prevent matting of the skin. Those are more like a couple of helpful additional features of dog colognes.
As for attaching pleasant smell, colognes are especially useful for dogs that spend some time outside. Outdoors, your dog can pick up odors that would render it socially unacceptable. In this case, you could either bath the dog or spray some cologne on its coat. The latter is much more time-saving, so it is a good option if you do not have time to shower your pet. But that does not mean that you can replace bathing with cologne spraying. Bathing helps with extracting dirt, dust, and bacteria from the coat of your dog, which will keep it healthy.
Dog combs
If you think about it, you might say that dog combs and brushes do the same thing. That is somewhat true as they both serve the same purpose of keeping your pet’s coat beautiful and healthy. What is different is that they can come in various sizes and shapes and with different features.
Combs are more fragile but help with more precise grooming. On the other hand, the stronger build of brushes makes them suitable for more thorough grooming of your pet’s coat. Suitability of either combs or brushes for several types and length of hair will depend on the breed of your dog. That does not mean that you cannot have both to be able to perform grooming more efficiently depending on the case. So choosing a comb, keep in mind the length and issues with the coating you have to make your grooming more efficient.
Dog dander remover sprays
Dander can be an issue for not only dogs but their owners as well. Allergies can make grooming your dog exceptionally difficult or even impossible. Besides, dander can build up in carpets or clothes, adding one additional thing for you to be concerned with. As for the coat of your animal, dander surely doesn’t make it look good.
One of the ways to treat dander is regular showering and using anti-dander shampoos. While it can indeed be a quite efficient way of reducing or even removing dander, it might be not the right solution for your case, unfortunately. That is when dander remover sprays come into play.
They are particularly useful when you cannot resolve the problem of dander with bathing alone. Dander remover sprays include ingredients that can efficiently deal with it. Another good thing about them is that you mostly will only need just to spray it on the desired area.
Dog dematting tools
While combs and brushes are highly efficient in taking primary care of your dog’s coat, more specific issues can and probably will be irresolvable with their use. One of such topics is matting of the fur. It can be painful for your pet and, besides, make grooming your dog much more difficult. If you have problems with your dog’s coat’s matting, you might want to look for a dematting tool.
At first glance, you might think that dematting tools and combs or brushes are the same, but that is not entirely true. The curved shape of their teeth is specifically designed to deal with coat matting and hair tangling. Some dematting tools are double-sided and feature a different number of teeth on each side. Usually, one side is made for stubborn mats while the other one will bring quicker results. You should look for a dematting tool if you have problems with matting of your pet’s coat specifically.
Dog deodorizers
While dog colognes mostly attach a new pleasant smell to your pet, deodorizers are used to eliminate odor and make your dog’s smell fresher. To put it more simply, the dog goes smell well cologne, and deodorizers make your pet not smell at all. Otherwise, their benefits and features can be pretty similar depending on the product you use.
Most deodorizers are easy to apply and don’t require any preparatory rituals like bathing. They do not even need water! The only thing you need to do is to spray or sprinkle the deodorizer on your pet to eliminate the unpleasant odor from its body. Some dog deodorizers can apply on your fabrics and upholstery for the same purpose. So if you cannot stand your dog’s scent after its outside walks but do not want any new smells(even if they are pleasant), you should get a dog deodorizer.
Dog grooming clippers & blades
Besides, making your dog look tidier, the haircut is a good way of monitoring the health of the coat and skin of your pet. With shorter hair, it is much easier to notice red spots, wounds, or parasites on the fur of your dog. Keeping the coat of your dog quick will aid with catching issues with its skin or hair earlier.
Besides facilitating keeping an eye on your dog’s coat, trimming is another excellent and efficient way of treating matting, hair tangling, and dander. The shorter hair is less likely to tangle and create inconveniences for you and your dog. Sometimes, doing a haircut is much more efficient than other types of grooming. Besides, long-haired dogs’ coat is better to be taken care of by clipping its hair as well. If you wish to deal with coat issues by doing a haircut, you can find a variety of clippers with blades to make cutting the hair of your dog comfortable and convenient.
Dog grooming wipes
Dog wipes are a great product if you need to do a quick cleanup. You can use them to wipe smaller areas like dog’s paws or muzzle. They are especially useful after walks if you need to keep the legs of your pet clean as you do not know what they could have come in contact with outdoors.
Another great thing about wipes is that they are an excellent choice if you are allergic to dander. With wipes, you will not have to bath your dog every day to remove dander as you can just lift it with one motion. Wipes apply to any allergy related to your dog! Buy grooming wipes if you need a quick option of cleaning your dog’s coat or individual body parts. Just don’t forget that you cannot substitute good baths with grooming wipes.
Dog Hair Removal Products
Hair removal products are useful tools to help you with getting rid of excessive hair from the coat of your dog. Not only that, hair removal products can come in the form of a broom or roller to help you clean your rooms or clothes for your pet’s hair. With dogs, these tools are extremely helpful in keeping both the coat of your dog and your property tidy.
If you need to clean your suit before going out quickly, you can use a roller to do just that. However, small rollers will not manage with entire rooms, and that is why you should get big rollers, hair removal brooms, or even vacuum cleaners.
As for the coat of your pet, you can find plenty of hair removal products like gloves or specialized brushes. Wearable products are incredibly convenient, but brushes are capable of removing hair just as efficiently. Pick a product in accordance with your preferences.
Dog Grooming Scissors
Grooming scissors are an excellent alternative to hair clippers.Unlike clippers, they do not have batteries and do not require power. Besides, you can perform grooming more precisely with scissors. If none of these points will help you, picking one or the other will be a matter of your personal preference.
One significant advantage is that especially tough tangles will not get caught in your scissors, which can happen with clippers, the speed of which you cannot regulate. However, with scissors, you will be able to adjust the tempo and direction of grooming much more precisely and painlessly for your pet. If you are concerned about the safety of your dog, some scissors come with rounded tip tops instead of pointy and sharp ones.If you are worried about precision, control, or are just better with scissors, you should take a look at the full choice of such products.
Dog Shampoos & Conditioners
When bathing your dog, water is surely not enough to eliminate all the bacteria on the coat and skin of your dog. Besides, your dog’s coat may need more specific care like moistening or delivery of vitamins. That is when shampoos & conditioners come into play. You can find a vast variety of such products to fit your needs precisely.
Bathing is quite essential and exceptionally necessary in keeping an eye on your dog’s health and appearance. It is one of the most efficient ways of dealing with dander, tangles, dust, dirt, and odor. While it is quite beneficial by itself, combining it with other methods of grooming will bring even more outstanding results. Picking the right shampoo & conditioner is as necessary as the bathing is crucial for the cleanness and health of your dog. Besides, they will ideally help you with taking care of your pet’s appearance.
Dog Shedding Tools
Shedding is one of the most common issues with any pet’s coat, but it gets extraordinarily complicated in the case of long-haired pets. Hair all over the place and your clothes are not a very pleasant thing to fight. It can even become extremely annoying with some breeds. Regardless of the breed of your dog or any pet you have, you should seriously think about precautions to take against shedding.
Shedding is not only a small issue with your pet’s coat; it indeed becomes a local disaster at your home. One of the ways of controlling shedding is grooming your pet with a shedding tool, which will help you dispose of excessive hair at once. Although, as you cannot ultimately take control over shedding, you should consider buying brooms, rollers, or any other type of hair removal products to help you deal with the consequences of shedding at your home.
Dog Shower and Bath Accessories
As for dog shower & bath accessories, the range of products you can get is extensive. You can find anything to make your dog’s showering much more convenient and your life more comfortable. Figured out that your shower head is not very good with showering your dog? You can find a pet shower sprayer to make the process more efficient! Don’t want to shower your dog in your bathtub? You can resolve this issue as well by getting a portable pet swimming pool! By the way, you could consider colognes and deodorizers, shower & bath accessories as well.
If you have issues or little inconveniences with bathing your dog, you can pretty much easily solve them by getting a whole set of shower & bath accessories. The only thing you need to do is know what you need, and you will find the right product in no time!
Dog Styptic Gels & Powders
The last supply on our list is a product which can be considered a true lifesaver. Styptic gels & powders are extremely useful in the case you need to stop bleeding before showing your pet to a vet at least temporarily. These can be considered a must-have that you should keep on hand anywhere and anytime. Wounds can be different – some may require just applying styptic gels & powders and forgetting about it while others need to be taken medical care of as soon as possible.
All this possibly makes dog styptic gels & powders the most crucial supply on the list. While you can (but shouldn’t) postpone bathing and grooming, bleeding is a severe problem. You should get a styptic gel & powder regardless of whether you worry about it mainly or not. Being prepared for everything is a huge plus you need to think about seriously.
Creative Grooming
Creative grooming is a sub-type of regular grooming. While regular grooming’s purpose is health monitoring and socializing with the pet, creative grooming is more of a way to express yourself. It is quite popular for imaginative people who want to add brightness and uniqueness to their everyday life. With modern tools and supplies, you will be capable of decorating your pet in whatever way you want to. It is a right way of self-expression, but it has some significant downsides as well.
First, you are performing creative grooming more for yourself than your dog. You will become satisfied while your pet will not gain any benefits from creative grooming. Moreover, other dogs and pets can react to the beautiful image of your dog quite negatively. Would you like to sacrifice the comfort of your dog for your tastes?
The other thing is the increased attention towards your dog. Other people might become interested in it and even want to take some photos. If your dog is uncomfortable with the attention, you should not perform creative grooming.
That is why you need to find out if your dog will be okay with the increased attention. Is your god sociable? If yes, you can consider half of the job done. Besides, if there lots of other dogs in your surroundings, keep in mind that their attitude towards your dog will probably be aggressive. Unfamiliar and strange image of a dog with bright-color coat will surely at least confuse them.
Otherwise, if you know that you will not have any troubles with creative grooming, do it if you wish to! On the one hand, it is an excellent way of expressing your style and releasing that art monster inside you. On the other hand, if your dog likes communicating with other people, their increased attention will make it feel much better!
Thinking about tools and supplies for creative grooming? Today, you can not only do creative grooming yourself but use services of professional creative grooming services. If you want to style your dog yourself, you can find an extended gamut of various grooming supplies out there! The only thing you need to do is look for them!
Benefits of Grooming
In this section, we will examine the benefits of dog grooming in general. As it can be performed either at home or by a professional grooming service, keep in mind that their benefits will be slightly different. We will talk about that a little bit later. So what are the benefits of grooming?
The dog will get to know you better:
Communicating with your dog is extremely important whether you are trying to take care of it or are just walking outside. An asocial pet will make such necessary things as touching or grooming extremely difficult. As an unfriendly dog gets older, it becomes increasingly difficult to make friends with it. Grooming will make your dog feel safe, which will positively change its attitude towards you. Besides, if grooming solves some problems with your dog’s health and comfort, it will surely appreciate your care.
Prevention of illnesses:
By grooming and taking care of your dog’s body and coat, you will be able to efficiently and timely catch diseases and parasites which could otherwise make the life of you and your pet much more complicated. Quick wiping, showering, haircut, and nail clipping are among the list of measures you can and should take to ensure that your dog is healthy. Regarding health, grooming is more of a long run ritual.
You will have to deal with less hair problem:
Hair removal products, shedding tools, clippers, scissors, brushes, and combs will help you to reduce shedding somewhat and make the everyday life of your dog much more comfortable. Well-groomed hair will not get tangled and will not itch. Besides, you could avoid dander and allergic reactions to it. Taking care of your dog’s fur is particularly vital after walks as it could collect dust and dirt as well as parasites. That is why you should immediately at least quickly wipe your pet’s body as soon as you are back home.
Another huge problem with dogs coats is shedding. It can become quite annoying if you have to continually clean your whole place to get rid of hair everywhere. In this case, you could either reduce shedding by grooming your dog or just resign yourself to it and clean your property only. Combining those means would be much more efficient and time-saving for you in the long run.
Your dog will look great:
The groomed body of your pet will shine with health and signal that it is taken good care of. With various colognes and deodorizers, you can forget about being embarrassed about the doggy odor. You will be capable of keeping your dog in suitable condition to both receive guests and be a welcomed guest yourself. Now that is surely a thing to think about carefully!
You will learn more about grooming:
Grooming a pet for the first time might be an entirely confusing thing to do. That is because you do not know what to do and how you should approach your dog correctly. With time, you and your pet will learn about it each other and make the process more efficient and pleasant for both of you. Besides, knowing what you are doing, you can significantly save a lot of your time.
Home Grooming Vs Professional Grooming
Wondering what is better – home grooming or professional grooming? Unfortunately, you will not find a clear answer to that question. You can compare the pros and cons of both to understand what is better for you.
Home grooming is excellent if you want to take care yourself and even have fun with it of your dog. Getting closer to your dog is another considerable advantage of home grooming.While those are without a doubt enormous benefits of home grooming, it is not very suitable for some people.
If you do not have the time or/and don’t know what to do, you can recourse to professional grooming services. Moreover, you can ask for advice to become capable of partly or even wholly taking care yourself of your pet. Professional grooming services are for those who do not have time or knowledge or just don’t want to deal with the problems of grooming.
So which one should you choose? The answer will somewhat depend on your needs and capabilities. Let us make it more clear to you. So, you probably should groom your dog at home if you:
- Have plenty of free time for grooming.
- Want to make better friends with your dog.
- Want to learn more about grooming.
- Have fun grooming your pet.
- Wish to control the process entirely.
Otherwise, you should entrust a professional groomer with your pet if you:
- Don’t wish to deal with grooming your pet.
- Don’t have time for grooming.
- Don’t know what to do.
- Want to set a base to be later capable of grooming your dog yourself.
While both ways of grooming have some distinct advantages, they come with sets of downsides as well. To complete your general knowledge of those types, we will present you with their disadvantages.
Disadvantages of home grooming:
- Initially, you might do something wrong.
- You have to know what to do to make grooming more useful.
- Time-consuming.
- You have to learn about the necessary tools and supplies and spend money on them.
As for the downsides of professional grooming, those are:
- Less time spent with your dog.
- You need to find an excellent grooming service.
- You won’t be able to take full control of grooming.
Which one is the best? We think that you should use both methods to maximize the efficiency of the process. While you should be in favor of home grooming as contact and communication with your dog are extremely necessary (it is your dog after all), sometimes you will have to call a professional grooming service. You can do it when you do not know what to do, don’t have time, or need advice. By the way, an excellent addition to grooming will be regularly visiting a vet as one of the purposes of grooming is keeping your pet healthy. Why not take more precautions?
Today, it is straightforward to groom your dog at home. You can find any tool you need on the Internet, and you can read online guides, although we recommend you to consult with a certified professional. They can even help you with home grooming if you ask them. So, we think the best way is to groom your dog yourself to communicate with it and call a professional when necessary. That way, you will gain benefits from both methods!
Conclusion
That is it for our today’s little introduction to the world of dog grooming. Was it quite enough for you to confidently start doing what you need to? If not, you can always read more on the subject to make yourself more acquainted with it.
As you could have seen, dog grooming is essential for you and your dog. It is a guarantee of health and allows you to get closer to your pet. Besides, the so-called creative grooming is a way of showing the world your taste and imagination. Is grooming worth it? As it is not only about hygiene but having a little fun as well. Want to make great friends with your dog? Grooming is the best way to form good relations with your pet!
Moreover, it is so comfortable with today’s massive variety of tools and supplies! The only thing you need to do is learning, getting some products for grooming, consulting with a professional dog groomer and you can be sure that the health and mood of your dog will continuously be perfect!
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings