How to Brush Your Curly Coated Dog

Hi there, it's Terry from TLC Dog Grooming and I wanted to talk about the curly coated dogs. This is Reese and she's a doodle and we get a lot of challenges with dog owners and their doodles and their cockapoos and anything poodle cross, okay? Anything that's got a really curly coat. So a couple weeks ago we had to shave Archie, our doodle, and someone wrote in and said, well what happened to the doodle, like why did he have to get shaved so short? So I wanted to show what goes on that people aren't aware of. So think of each of these curls as a finger, okay? So take your index finger or your middle finger and cross it over your index finger and your ring finger and cross it over your middle finger and your pinky finger, right? Everything cross it over like that and then your thumb that makes a fist, okay? That's a mat, your fist is the mat. So what happens here, this is to try and give you a visual of it, okay? So this curl, this curl and this curl, they'll all wind around each other and clump together. So your job with your curly coated dogs is to get your brush in there, okay? And you have to separate all those fingers, okay? You got to separate them so that they don't make a fist. So you don't want your dog curly like this all the time. When it's curly like this all the time, you know you got to get in there and you got to do some work with your brush and your comb, okay? You want it all separated. So in Archie's case specifically, he wears a sweater, so the friction of the sweater, between the sweater, the hair, and the body, back and forth, back and forth, okay? Just let your foot off the gas just a little bit and you're brushing and you're combing and you're going to get these mats, okay? So it's going to take a little bit of work to get through this. I kind of, I'm not brushing her properly, but for the camera's sake so that people can see, okay? So when I go through with my comb, I know that I'm good and I can move on to the next spot. See, normally when you're doing this, you're going to be standing and looking at the side that you're working on. I'm doing it this way so that folks can see, okay? And can you hear that sound? Okay, that's the tines of the brush pulling through those fingers, those tightly wind fingers of hair that are clumped together, about to create massive matting, okay? That's that pulling through. So when you don't hear that sound anymore, you know that you've gotten through, you've gotten everything separated, okay? Then you follow up with your metal comb. See, and if I take my metal comb through here, oh, it goes through not too bad, but it gets snagged, okay? It gets snagged. So you know you're in trouble. That's why you got to get in with your brush and separate, separate those hairs, okay? And they don't like it on the front legs very much. See, now the comb goes through. I'm doing this totally backwards, but I want you to have a good visual, okay? So the problem areas always are behind the ears, in the toes, elbows, armpits, chest, neck, flank, because this leg comes forward and creates a lot of friction in there, okay? So all this is all twining around, and it's about to be a bit of a disaster. So she's got her in just in the nick of time, because by me getting this clean, okay, and blowing it out, putting some product on it, I'm going to get all these little hairs separated so I can get my brush underneath of it. The base of the tail is usually a problem too, because hers is really something, because she's got a tail that comes right up over her rump and curls back around, just kind of like a little pug tail almost. But when this tail is wagging, that friction on the backside and the top of the tail, like this is a right here, is a fist of math, okay? So yeah, to the lady out in interwebs that asked what happened to that doodle, tell me more about that doodle. That's what happened, and we're trying to avoid that with Reese here, and we will. We will be successful with it, because she's in just in the nick of time. If she'd have gone a couple of more weeks without bumping up on her brushing and her combing, Reese would have been in trouble here, okay? And we might have had to take her shorter. She's quite matted down in here in the feet, and you're going to get that when you go out and you get mucky, dirty feet, wet feet, and you come in and you get your towel and you dry the feet, you create that friction. So if you haven't gone in with a brush and comb and brushed it out thoroughly, okay? Again, I'm doing this totally backwards. If the camera wasn't on, I would be standing on that side, okay? If you don't go in with your brush and comb after you've washed and dried feet from being out running about in the muck, you're going to get matted feet. You're going to get matted toes. In between each toe gets matted, okay? I brush up a lot because I like to brush from the skin out, but I also brush down, okay? And notice how I hold the brush differently in my hand, right? It's my tool that I move it around a lot to what's comfortable for what part of the body I'm working on. What's up, girl? Okay, so that doesn't go through, so I know I've got more work to do, okay? And I can't really effectively do it when I'm standing, I'm looking over the dog. It's, can you just, thank you, thank you ma'am. Oh, all right, right? This comb's not going through, so I know I've got more work to do in this area. Okay, got to get busy with Reese. Thanks. If you've got questions about your Curly Coated Dog, let us know in the comments and we'll do a video or blog post for you. Have a great day, everybody.