To shave or not to shave – a look into the literature about dogs thermal regulation,coat growth and more……
25
Jun
Jun
I have made a new, updated version of this post with more facts and links to science studies.
I have made a new, updated version of this post with more facts and links to science studies.
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Excellent article
Thank you
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks Mia for documenting your findings in a scholarly but easily readable format. This delves thoroughly into the many more factors that the simplistic arguments regarded as received wisdom that groomers freely dispense, don’t.
Dr Linda Frank from the University of Tennessee is another academic whose research into Alopecia X that you may like to investigate.
thanx Trudy . I have a look into her work 🙂
Thank you for this article.
It is refreshing to see medical documents searched and referenced with an educational material for our grooming industry.
I teach a certification class on caring optimally for skin and coat in the grooming salon. With your permission I would certainly like to have this article shared with all of my attendees and those who inquire upon me for more information- as supporting info for them to continue to learn more about this heated topic on objective in fact based level.
Thank you again, sincerely, and best of luck in your work!
Thanx for you positive words about it 🙂
You are more than welcome to share it
Brilliant review! Would love to make contact! Have just started a post on my page about clipping dogs at @DrDavidMarlin! Lot of resistance. Would love to invite you to write a post or comment on the thread! dm@davidmarlin.co.uk
Good article, but holy crap, please get an English speaking editor for grammar. 👀
I promise to sort it out – I know how much it hurts my brain to read something with bad grammar in my own language 😂
Let me know if you want me to proof it for you
Very good article, excellent depth while still keeping the language on easy terms.
Great article, but, as a suggestion, in your personal information, “teached at an animal care college,” change the “teached” to “taught.” I understand that English is not your first language.
Thanks ! And thanks for your grammar suggestion-I have changed it now ☺️
Thank you for the advice ☺️
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Excellent article. Thank you
Ok so with all this being said …I have 2 Great Pyrenees same age actually littermates. They both have completely different coats …one is neutered and the other isn’t. The one that’s not has a lighter coat and the other that is has a coat like he has 4 layers it is so thick and he sheds year round. They are pets not working dogs and go in and out throughout the day. What would be your suggestion for them? To shave or not to shave? Yes I did read the whole article and I’m still confused. Suggestions Please? And Thank You in advance.
Hi Mary!
In the end it all depends on the dogs and your climate.
If your dogs are not bothered by the heat there is no need in shaving them . And if the warm weather only lasts for 2 weeks -like it does here in Ireland *LOL* – then its not much use either in risking the coat damage that can occur.
So its down to each individual case – some dogs are fine if you deshedd them and maybe clip the stomach area short ( for greater heat transfer ) -others are more affected by heat due to age/medical conditions/heavy weight and therefore benefit more from a shorter trim.
We dont need to scalp them to get a positive effect – you can make it much more comfortable for the dog by just shortening the coat as long as you make sure that you have removed as much undercoat as possible.
(it is the undercoat that causes the main heat preservation ) .
So if the dog is old and overweight and your main temperature during the whole year is high – then I would clip it if it was my dog. But if its a young dog with no health issues and the warm period only last for a short time – then I would try to just remove as much undercoat as possible and maybe clip the stomach and see if the dog seems fine with that.
In the end – its a nice to have the dogs looking like they are intended to do 🙂
My standard poodle that I have now doesnt do well with warm weather at all- he finds it hot even if I only have 18 C indoors – but one of my previous ones loved to sleep out in the sun…. so they are all individuals and thats why there is no -“one size fits all” answer to the question.
I feel validated. I have been calling old the old wives’ tale on clipping double coats for decades. I bred and showed two breeds-Shetland Sheepdog and Border Collie. Those no longer being show, I always clipped down in the spring. The ones currently being shown were groomed almost daily and kept inside mostly. I don’r campaign dogs, so they wee usually shown for less than a year.
Not only did they do much better in their shorter coats were all ready to go when the cooler weather came. I never had a coat grow back weird. They always grew back fast, actually.
An excellent article, but I felt the lack of a discussion in the changes of coat in a breeding bitch. They loose a lot of coat when raising a litter.
Hi, Mia.
I wanted to know about the risk of coat texture changing after clipping. Is this for all dogs, or related to age or coat type? My fear is that the coat texture changing will make the coat harder to maintain in terms of brushing/matting/shedding etc. I’m a groomer and tell my clients about the risk of poor regrowth and the texture changing. I also have a samoyed and while I’ve never shaved him, i used to scissor in areas like his tuck up, bum and front legs. These areas now grow longer than other areas and the guard hairs are crimped/zigzagged, not straight, making these areas very thick and coarse. He was 7 when i started trimming those areas (rescue) and he’s now a bit over 10 years but in good health and for the most part his coat is very healthy other than those areas I’ve scissored.
Happy to share photos of his changed coat of that helps.
Hi Erin!
Yes – you get the same changes after clipping as you get after shaving. It is not the tool that causes the changes – it’s the shortening of the coat that does it. These are also areas that have a lot of wear and tear and that adds to the damage that is done to the hairs.
What you can do to minimise the visible damage is to use a light silicone conditioning spray on those areas on a regular basis. It wont repair the damage but it will cover it up for a while and help to reduce the wear and tear damage. Modern silicone sprays does not create a build up -so don’t be afraid of using it.
It wears off after a while -so you need to re-apply it on a bi-weekly basis ( you notice after a while how long it lasts )
This is an awesome post. I am going to share this a lot. It’s nearly summer here and the “you’ll kill your dog by shaving group” is out in force! My female, spayed Labrador gets shaved every summer. Temps are usually over 100 f. from June to September. She’s an indoor dog, but without clipping she doesn’t enjoy being walked, or playing. With being clipped she is able to withstand the heat much better. By late fall her hair has regrown however, even if it didn’t – she would be miserable every summer.
Thanx for your positive words about my work.
And yes- a lot of dogs benefits from being clipped shorter when its hot.
We just have to be aware of the negative effects the clipping can have on some coats and then weigh in that when we make the decision.
Really good piece, very useful and informative – thank you
Thank you Mia of your excellent article! I’ll use your information in my groomingblog if its okay (Finnish!) and of course add link
Glad you liked it. You are more than welcome to use the information as long as you link back to my blog 🙂
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Who’s god? Surely you mean Whose god.
yes -thanx for pointing that out – I will change it 🙂
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One thing I note that you didn’t address in this article was pattern of regrowth of a shaved dog and perhaps this is not the article for that. I get the thermal regulation side of the yes argument very well. I approve of it in fact. The problem with certain breeds, Newfoundlands in particular but to a lesser extent rough coated Saint Bernard’s Ovcharka and Tibetan Mastiff’s the regrowth pattern tends to be not just patchy but will regrow in a curled fashion that more than doubles the maintenance effort of keeping the new coat healthy and flat (in the case of Newfies). I know. I had to have mine shaved due to an uncontrollable flea infestation due to contact with one of my sublettors allowing the carpet in their home to become infested with fleas from their cat and my Newf spending lots of time there (we since have cured the flea problem in that house and Charlie’s flea problem too but it required my groomer shaving him close in order to get rid of all the fleas crying with every single stroke of the clippers at what she was having to do because she knows that the hair will likely not grow back as it was). As of now he is slowly regaining his coat (he is 13 (but in otherwise excellent health) so progress is very slow for him, and the hair indeed is coming back in curled instead of straight as his old coat was. I have to brush twice as often (twice a day instead of once) using a straightener and he has to go back every 6 weeks to the groomer until the coat is back in place.
Yeah -the coat can def change to the negative for some breeds. If the dog is clipped very short, the skin can thicken and that can affect the hair follicle and in the end the hair quality.
This is why we always have to weigh in all aspects before clipping this type of coat short – and if possible try to leave it a bit longer to protect the skin from drying out.
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Thank you so much for this article, I’m constantly rescuing dogs in a warm climate and own a husky, 2 lab mixes and a Greenland sledge dog husky cross and another northern breed – the Sledge mix with longer hair must be shaved every summer with a lion cut or he won’t even walk outside, the short haired husky is totally fine and the labs are as well. I came across this article because I am frequently told I shouldn’t be shaving him and have been thinking about clipping my other northern breed for this summer. I really appreciated the research you put into your article. To me it’s just common sense, if they are hot all day every day and have 10 pds of fur on them – you should clip them, but now I have somewhere to point other northern breed owners to when they are on the fence about clipping their dogs. Thank you!!!
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Thank you for this well-researched and circumspect article. I have an Australian Shepherd and live in the Southeastern United States in a very hot, humid climate. We keep our Aussie clipped short from May through about October/November depending on how cool it is outside. He is neutered and tends to get very thick wool. We have never tried to brush it out because we always planned on shaving him in the summer months. If we don’t shave him, he is absolutely miserable. He stays laying down on the floor to try to keep from getting hot, only stays outside long enough to poo or pee, and then immediately goes back inside. The first time we shaved him, he was actually SMILING at us. He looked like a cartoon character! I just shaved him this weekend and his energy levels are much better, he is playful again, and will actually lay down in my lap to sleep. He was getting so hot in that thick coat that he would only sit with me about 15 minutes and then he would get down and lay on the floor. I got my couch buddy back! Thank you again for this information. It is very disappointing that even the ASCA (Australian Shepherd Club of America) says on their website that it is harmful to shave them but has ZERO scientific information on the subject posted in their grooming tips. I’m glad to see that there is at least ONE person online who shares information and not merely their opinion.
Hi!
Thanx for your positive respons.
And Yes-I see the same with my standard poodle.We dont even have hot weather here in Ireland 😂- but when it reaches 15 C he is miserable until I clip him short.Then he is just like your dog- a complete transformation and is like a puppy again- despite being 9 years old.
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Would have been a far easier read, if more succinct! Ironically, ‘cut to the chase’ came to mind. I lost the will to live, as such a long article. Some useful bits in there, but far too long-winded.
Hi Katy!
There is a shorter version available for those that doesnt want to dive deeper into the topic-
https://theeducatedgroomer.com/the-short-version-of-how-a-long-coat-affects-a-dog-when-its-hot-outside/
As an apprentice groomer whose bullshit detector has been going off nonstop, THANK YOU.