The Essential Guide to Dog Grooming: Why Regular Care Matters

Much grooming can be done at home.  The first step in home grooming is to have the proper tools such as clippers.

“Grooming” conjures up pictures of expensive salons for poodles or Shih Tzus or images of the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club dog show. The family dog certainly doesn’t need fancy haircuts or expensive baths with hot oil treatments. However, failing to groom the dog is akin to neglecting to comb a child’s hair and wash behind his ears.

All dogs need grooming, but some dogs need more grooming than others.  Some dogs need to be combed frequently and completely to prevent kinks and knots caused by the intertwining of hairs or dirt, grit, or vegetative matter in the coat. Other dogs need to be clipped to keep their coats free of mats.

Pet supply stores have a dizzying variety of tools and products to assist in dog grooming. There are combs with fine teeth, combs with medium teeth, and combs with coarse teeth, combs with handles and without. There are brushes with short metal pins, brushes with slanted metal pins, brushes with flexible plastic pins, oval-shaped brushes, and rectangular brushes. There are shedding blades for thick-coated dogs that shed gobs of undercoat and nubby gloves for smooth-coated breeds.  And there are grooming clippers to trim your dog’s coat.

Dog breeds that don’t shed that much are wonderful in that you won’t need to spend as much time vacuuming your floors or removing dog fur from your favorite clothes, but there are a few trade-offs. For one, you may need to brush their coats regularly and, for another, because they don’t shed, you’ll need to trim their hair every four to six weeks or so. Trips to the groomer can add up quickly, which is why many dog parents choose to groom at home.

PROfessional Hair Clippers

Acme Canine was asked to test the PROfessional Hair Clippers kit and share our thoughts on the product.  We asked professional dog groomer Kim McMahon to help us.  Here are her comments.

Professional Groomer Kim McMahon of GroomNZoom in Powell 

“These are by no means to be used professionally. They don’t have the power. The combs are pretty much useless, in my opinion. I couldn’t cut any fur with them on regardless of length.  The blade is very sharp, but after only a few uses, the sharpness is gone, and I wouldn’t trust them to use anything other than cutting out mats.

On the positive side, the design is great. They’re very lightweight and easy to handle. The charge lasts a very long time. I also really like how quiet they are as well. The dogs were not intimidated by the noise like my professional clippers. The nail clippers are run if the mill and will work for home maintenance, I suppose.

The scissors would probably be ok for home use, but I use much longer and much sharper shears for my clients.

The nail file thingy is flimsy and would only work on an extremely patient dog. I use a Dremel for nail grinding.”

Conclusion

Depending on your dog and circumstances, you may be able to get by using the PROfessional Grooming Kit.  And it does include many of the items needed for grooming your dog at home.

Acme Canine gives this grooming kit 3 out of 5 paws up.