Grooming basics: coat, claws, teeth and ears

Most owners treat grooming as cosmetic: brush the dog so there is less hair on the sofa. The genuinely valuable part is different — brushing is how people find ticks, lumps under the skin, wounds, sore spots and the first signs of skin trouble. An animal will not tell you something hurts. Your hands will.

Brushing: the most important and the simplest

Frequency depends not on coat length but on whether there is an undercoat. Breeds with a dense undercoat need regular work all year, peaking during moults. A smooth-coated dog needs going over once a week.

• Long coat with undercoat — every other day, otherwise mats form faster than you can work them out.
• Dense undercoat without long hair — several times a week, daily during a moult.
• Short smooth coat — once a week, more for the massage and the check than for the hair.
• Cats matter just as much as dogs here: everything you do not brush out, the cat swallows while grooming.

Mats are not a cosmetic problem. They pull at the skin, which then sweats and inflames underneath, and the animal is in constant discomfort when it moves. Cutting a mat out with scissors near the skin is risky: the skin lifts along with the hair, and a cut happens more easily than you would expect. Dense mats are better left to somebody with clippers.

Bathing: less often than people think

Frequent washing strips the protective layer of the skin, and a loop begins: the skin dries out, it itches, the animal scratches, the owner washes more often. A healthy dog is usually bathed every few months, or when it actually gets dirty. A healthy cat is not bathed at all — it manages perfectly well, the exceptions being serious contamination with something harmful or a vet's instruction.

• Warm water, not hot. The simple test: it should be comfortable on your wrist.
• Put something non-slip on the bottom of the bath. Half the fear of bathing is the fear of losing footing.
• Keep water out of the ears. Water that gets inside is a common cause of inflammation.
• Rinse the product out completely. Shampoo residue itches and prompts licking.
• Dry thoroughly, especially a dense undercoat: a wet undercoat takes a day to dry and can lead to skin problems underneath.

Claws: only frightening the first time

Overgrown claws change how the paw sits and eventually cause joint problems. In the worst case a claw curls round and grows into the pad — very painful, and a job for a vet. The simple test: if you can hear clicking on the floor as the dog walks, it is time.

1. 1Find the quick — the pink zone inside the claw where the blood vessel and nerve run. On pale claws you can see it; on dark ones you cannot.
2. 2Take off only the tip, at a slight angle. Several small trims across several days beat one big cut.
3. 3On dark claws, watch the cut surface: as soon as a grey or dark dot appears in the centre, stop — the quick is close.
4. 4Do one claw per session if the animal is anxious. Nobody says all twenty have to happen at once.
5. 5Do not forget the dewclaws higher up on dogs — they do not wear down on their own and are the ones that most often grow in.

If you catch the quick there will be blood and it will hurt. Press with a clean pad and wait — bleeding usually stops within a few minutes. The important part afterwards is not to give up on trimming forever, or next time the animal will remember only the pain.

Cats get only the front claws trimmed, and only the tips. A scratching post does not replace trimming entirely, but it substantially reduces how often it is needed.

Teeth: the most ignored part of care

Tartar is not an aesthetic issue. It leads to inflamed gums, loose and lost teeth, and chronic inflammation in the mouth puts a load on the whole body. Yet hardly anybody brushes their animal's teeth.

• A sharp unpleasant smell from the mouth is not "normal dog smell" — most often it is a sign of a problem.
• A red line along the gum, brown deposits at the base of the teeth, bleeding: all reasons to see a vet.
• The animal eating more slowly, chewing on one side, dropping hard pieces — often the teeth rather than fussiness.
• Regular brushing is the most effective thing you can do at home. The paste must be a veterinary one: human paste is not made to be swallowed.

Ears and eyes

The rule here is less intervention. Healthy ears do not need weekly cleaning, and over-handling is itself a cause of inflammation.

• Look at the ears once a week. Normal is clean pale skin with no smell.
• Warning signs: dark discharge, a strong smell, the animal shaking its head or scratching an ear, tilting its head to one side.
• Never go into the ear with a cotton bud. You push the contents deeper rather than removing them.
• Eyes: a small amount of clear discharge in the corners in the morning is normal. Pus, redness or squinting one eye means a vet.
• Breeds with long drop ears need closer checking: ventilation is worse and inflammation is more common.

Getting an unwilling animal used to it

Resistance is nearly always the legacy of a procedure once done by force. The fix follows the same logic as the carrier: break it into tiny steps and always finish before the animal starts to struggle.

1. 1Start with touch and no tools. Just handle the paws, ears and muzzle, and follow immediately with something tasty.
2. 2Show the tool, let them sniff it, put it away. A few seconds, several times a day.
3. 3Do one stroke with the brush, or one claw, and stop there. Finishing at the right moment matters more than the result.
4. 4Never hold an animal down to the end of a procedure. One episode of panicked struggling sets you back weeks.
5. 5Pick a calm moment — after a walk or a meal, not when the animal is full of energy.

What you are actually checking

Once a week, while you brush, run your hands over the whole body. You are looking for:

• Lumps, bumps and swellings under the skin — especially new ones or ones that have changed since last time.
• Places where the animal flinches at your touch. That is "it hurts here".
• Wounds, scratches, bald patches, dandruff, redness.
• Ticks — behind the ears, on the neck, in the armpits, between the toes.
• The state of the paw pads: cracks, packed dirt, foreign objects between the toes.

Shelter animals often arrive home with a neglected, matted coat — that is the result of living without regular grooming, not of temperament. For the first weeks work in short sessions and without hurry: for many of them, being calmly brushed is their first experience of human hands being pleasant.