Grooming an Australian shepherd: Buy an undercoat rake!
hey everybody today we’re going to be
talking about grooming an Australian
Shepherd and I don’t know about all of
you guys but we had a little bit of an
unusual start today getting introduced
to a brush but trooper was a puppy he’s
happy now
when juber was a puppy he hated being
brushed he’d fight his tooth and nail
and he would bite us and growl and run
away and he wouldn’t tolerate any form
of grooming um it wasn’t a big deal we
lived in a rainy cold place and getting
to his undercoat or brushing him really
or grooming him wasn’t as much of a
necessity because he didn’t like it and
his coat kept him warm
but then when he’s about to maybe he was
three we decided to give it a try with
another brush and we and I got this
brush so it’s not a very effective tool
as you can see I think it might even
belong in the human product section it
doesn’t penetrate much into the hair it
doesn’t pull anything off but he likes
the way it feels so it was a good
introduction to gain use the habit of
being groomed so two to two and a half
three years old he started in group with
this and then I figured out what I
needed to do something more effective I
could convince him he was being groomed
by this if I would pull pull pull pull
and just hide the fact that this was
actually doing the work and that worked
for a little while but now he’s six and
a half years old and I started looking
into how to effectively get to his
undercoat we live in a warmer place now
and my typical strategy that’s my
typical budget strategy of just cutting
his hair with scissors to get him cooler
doesn’t always make him very pretty so
we live in a warm place no one to look
nice and so I started talking to
groomers about what’s the cheapest way
to make him look nice at home by myself
what they immediately recommended and I
was lucky the groomer had mossy was in
undercoat brush if this has finally has
some distance between the needles
they’re soft they’re blunt on the ends
they’re there they don’t hurt them it
looks like a fierce tool but it I’ve
seen it used quite aggressively on the
dog doesn’t seem to mind
so what we’re going to look at today is
a comparison between using this brush
down or this rake down one side of
Trouper doing and using this one on the
other side and actually I
found a great use of this type of
pointless brush on my Aussie and I’ll
show you that at the end
so what we’re first going to do we’ll
start with pants as troopers volunteered
his rear end is well we’ll just work
through I’ll work through one side the
dog with one brush and I’ll switch over
to the other and we’ll see how the
stacks of hair compare at the end as
well as the general look and feel of his
coat here we go I’m Schubert does not
like this brush nor does he like game is
pants brushed so it’s only a matter of
time for whips around and gives me a
warning we’ll see how it goes
so we’ve kind of done a very rough
I guess not in-depth job on the pants
you can see not very much hair on the
brush which the pants are very dense
very coarse hair and you would expect to
have a lot more hair come out alright so
now we have some hair so this is our
first GABAA hair from the left side
we’ll just finish up this side of his
pants and then we’ll try the other side
I won’t do his chest because I won’t
help us for the comparison
all right so I’ll call that good
it’s our total stack of hair from that
side
that’s his troopers first time with this
rake well this is gonna be interesting
does it seem to mind
Wow immediate lots of hair didn’t have
to wait long for that I didn’t even do
the pants I was also advised by the
groomer that one good way to get their
coat is to pick it up in batches and
will face you and work the comb to rake
through and then move your way into the
next section so you keep exposing
undercoat boy trooper and then when the
undercoat feels smooth you move to the
next section I guess this is kind of how
I brush my own hair be parting two
sections and talk a little bit at a time
so I couldn’t really do this with the
other brush spend so much time on focus
areas because doing so didn’t seem to
help much the bristles are very short
and it seemed that regardless you
wouldn’t get the same penetration to the
skin as you would go sorry
good boy good boy alright so we have
about an equal amount of hair already
and we just got started Cooper’s going
to lay down but thankfully you expose
the correct side
that’s pretty remarkable punch my hair
again we’ve now nearly doubled amount of
hair that’s come off since starting use
the rake
all right so we’ll call that good for
now cuz I think the comparison is easy
to see at this point the difference in
amount of hair that’s come off and the
second side I didn’t even get do all of
his pants Cleese sat down nor did I move
as far forward towards his head as I did
at this side and this is a lot more hair
so let’s see how the pants look and feel
country oh alright so this side do it
smooth feels nice
looks just as shaggy as usual turn him
around
this sign feels maybe smoother you know
I can’t say for certain there’s a real
difference there and he looks just as
shaggy so look and feel wise I would say
there’s not a huge difference with the
very quick job that I just did but you
can see by the hair that’s coming off
that you’ll certainly reduce the amount
of shedding and hair that falls into
your carpet on your clothes in your
house if you use a good undercoat brush
before use another brush so clearly
invest in one of these if you are
interested in D and helping your dog
shed more in a more controlled fashion
now this brush I use when he wants to
feel good sound low sad day he really
likes it but he’s a little sensitive
about the hair around his ears and
neuroses might have similar hair it’s
kind of it’s like silky it’s almost a
different dog’s hair so it tangles up a
little a lot differently so that’s the
kind of tangles that are behind his ears
as opposed to just having dreadlock but
in his pants and so I’ll use this on his
ears it doesn’t penetrate deeply but he
really likes how it feels and it makes
them look nice if I’m trying to get this
stuff I might use that brush very
carefully and that seems to work okay
the other use for this sit okay we’re
just put pay attention
sit thank you is for brushing the hair
away on his toes so he can trim them so
I so we joke in my house that trooper
gets Grinch feet and that’s because he
has hair that grows out from his toes in
all sorts of directions I’m sure your
Aussies do too including on the bottom
and it makes him look like he has
Clydesdale foot or Grinch foot and if
you look at the two feet I trimmed this
one about two weeks ago and it hasn’t
grown in really that much yet he looks
kind of nice too looks groomed and I did
it $0 this one I didn’t do so I’m going
to show you really quick how I do them
it’s really easy
troopers very sensitive about his feet
and he lets me do this so I consider
that quite an achievement so all I do is
I you were Stan
good boy lay down lay down good dog he
knows what’s coming yes good boy all
right I brush the hair back and I
thought isn’t hurt them so you’d think
that invited trooper gets itchy feet and
I’ll do this sometimes it seems to
really like it so this is a nice
grooming tool for us and then when the
hair is up and just snip it away because
I’m because troopers on a show dog I’m
not necessarily concerned that his his
trim job looks perfect I just want him
to look a little neater to not bring so
many things in in the hair of his feet
and and that’s basically it so I would I
would then maybe do some of the hair on
the bottom you can push it back with the
brush as well you can also do the hair
between I’ll take a little bit longer so
that’s all it is
and there you go his Grinch feet are
gone if you didn’t use the brush
beforehand you just tried to pick it up
and go like that you might cut his skin
the brush makes some good space between
his skin and where your scissors need to
go and so that’s it I would highly
recommend you invest in a right
and depending on your dog’s needs and
preferences you might have a couple of
others that you use for different parts
of his body and best of luck
