If your dog has started leaving a soft drift of hair under every chair, nothing is wrong. Late summer and early autumn are when the coat turns over: the light summer hair goes, and a thicker layer grows in underneath for the cold months.
Dogs with a double coat feel it most. Huskies, corgis, German shepherds, golden retrievers and their countless mixes carry a dense woolly undercoat beneath the longer guard hairs, and twice a year they let almost all of it go. Short single-coated dogs shed too, just more quietly and more evenly.
What brushing actually does
- Takes the dead undercoat out into the brush instead of onto the sofa, the car and your black trousers.
- Spreads the skin's own oils along the hairs, which is most of what makes a coat look glossy.
- Stops mats forming behind the ears, in the armpits and around the tail — the places that felt up first.
- Gives you a weekly hands-on survey for ticks, lumps, scabs and sore spots you would never spot through fur.
How often depends on the coat
- Short, smooth coat: a rubber grooming mitt or bristle brush once or twice a week.
- Double coat: an undercoat rake several times a week, and daily while it is really coming out.
- Long, silky coat: comb right down to the skin every day — the top can look perfect while a mat forms underneath.
Five minutes your dog will sit for
- Short and often beats one long battle. Five calm minutes a day are worth more than forty minutes once a month.
- Start where your dog likes to be touched — chest, shoulders — and leave the belly, tail and back legs for later, once they have settled.
- Never pull at a mat. Hold the hair at the base so it does not tug the skin, and work it apart from the outside in. Anything tight and close to the skin is a job for a groomer, not for your scissors.
- Finish before your dog wants to finish, and pay them for it. A brush that always ends well is one they walk towards.
A bath helps during a heavy shed: warm water and a thorough dry loosen a great deal of dead undercoat, and it comes away easily on the brush afterwards. Brush before the bath as well as after — wet mats tighten and are far harder to open.
When it is not ordinary shedding
- Bald patches, thinning down both flanks, or hair loss in a symmetrical pattern
- Red, flaky or greasy skin, a strong smell, or scratching and chewing that does not stop
- Hair that breaks off short rather than falling out whole
- Shedding alongside weight gain, low energy or a dog seeking out warm spots — thyroid trouble often looks like a coat problem first
Any of those is a conversation with your vet rather than a reason to buy a better brush. Everything else is simply autumn arriving. Keep a brush by the sofa, pick it up while the kettle boils, and by the time the heating goes on your dog will be wearing a new coat instead of your home wearing the old one.
