Shedding Help!!!!I have tumble weeds flowing around the house....

Hi Jenny & Sunny,
I don't really have anything that profound or new to add to the advice already given, except to say that counting Ebony, our Newf, we have effectively "rescued" four massive-breed-furry-coated-dogs in the past five or six years and here's what I've learned:  nutrition is instrumental in a dog's coat. So given that you've only had Sunny a month and she's only been on good food for a month (I'm making some categorical assumptions that if you're taking the time to hang out with a bunch of dog-crazy people (and I count myself about as maniacal as they come), you're either cooking for your dog or buying the best available to you), you've got at least a few weeks of shedding ahead of you. Goldens do shed at least a couple times a year as far as I know. 

I also know that breeds with coats do need regular brushing and bathing to keep the skin healthy (as opposed to the double coated terriers that have ruled all of my adult life that only need regular brushing and stripping to keep their skin healthy, unless you're showing, which is a whole other thread!).  Take everyone's advice here and add a rake to your grooming collection.  For Ebony I went to Petsmart and bought a "horse" type rake.  Someone here has already described it: a long strip of flexible metal with short little teeth along the edge with both ends covered in about three or four inches of plastic or leather.  The handles can be bound together to form an eliptical type tool. 

We just got our shedding rake-thingy last year after already having had Sadie for three or four years.  The minute I used on Ebony, who was in the middle of throwing her coat over most of Southern Colorado, I wondered how we EVER lived without it!!  I just hadn't fully understood the difference in coats between terriers and coated dogs.   Now I do and I preach it like religion!!  My tack box for grooming has also grown substantially!

Ebony's also undergone some pretty significant changes in her environment over the past month, having moved from the inferno-on-earth known as southern Colorado, to the blissfully mild Pacific Northwest, so she's starting to blow her coat a little early this year.  While Dixie said her backyard looks like a snowstorm, I think ours looks like clouds of black smoke from a refinery!!

Hope this helps Jenny...Hugs to Sunny

I have a blade like this expect mine is looped into four circles with a handle.  And YES volumes of undercoat comes out with this tool.  I use it sometimes when we hike in the forest.  It makes it look like a small animal exploded by the time we leave.  lol

Well, Becca sheds a lot year round, despite being on Eagle Pack her whole life...hopeful ly the change to raw will help.

But here's my trick for taking care of fur in the house.  Pretty much everywhere she lies down leaves a bit of fur behind...it flows under the couch and everywhere.  Get a soft bristle brush, the human type (to be used only for the carpet). "Goody" makes a good one with a wood handle and short, black bristles.  Now brush the carpet, the couch,  and run it under the couch too.  It works wonders at picking up hair in hard-to-reach places!

I always run it around the baseboards and under things the vacuum has trouble reaching.  It takes hair right off the couch, too, much better than using a vaccuum attachment.

Jen

Oh, my god, furballs. 

Moto, my sister's Tyranocanis Muttis, has been know to send furballs in CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.  You would think in December in Utah he'd quit shedding, but it's never happened yet.  Last year, he shed all over the snowman the kids next door built.   

The only thing that has saved my sister's sinus cavity from utter implosion (naturally, she is severely allergic to her babies) is that One-Sweep broom that you see on the informercials.  You can sweep all the dog hair out of your carpet--she uses it to sweep the carpet three days a week before she vacuums.   

Harley is also a shedder but when my daughter was about 5 I moved her toy box(about an inch of space under it but hair just accumulates there) to vacuum under it and there was a BUNCH of hair she looked very perplexed and wanted to know how Harley fit under the toy box?

We had harley shaved down so now he looks like a skinny black lab we do this about once a year because brushing him is an arobic exercise!!  So now we have short black hair instead of long black hair, also leather furniture helps.

OH MY LORD!  I saw something in action this weekend that we all need.  I don't even have the dog yet, and I'm thinking, "I need to buy that!"

It's the Pet Buddy Hair Vacuum thing that's on the infomercials.  I was at a family St. Pat's thing this weekend (yes, I come from a large family of Scots-Irish drunks) and Kristy had one of these things. 

It's SO COOL. 

If you haven't seen the infomercial, it hooks up to a normal vacuum, like an attachment. You put the vacuum and the hair catching tub in another room, and there's a long, long hose that you take the dog or the cat or whoever to be brushed a room or two away--we went out to the patio.  The end of the hose has little grooming teeth on the end of it, and you just use that to brush your animal, and it sucks up all the hair as it loosens!

Obviously, it doesn't do as good a job as real tools do, but it did a really credible job of getting the surface loose fur, which meant that it was much less messy when she broke out the heavy-duty tools.  Plus, as she got little piles with the tools, she just sucked them into the vacuum!

The cats loved it even more than the dogs did.  I guess the sucking sensation of the vacuum hose was quite pleasant!

Most people brought their furkids, so we did 9 pr 10 cats and probably 8 dogs. The kids had a BLAST vacuuming their animals.   It's one of the funner things we've come up with for the kids to do at these family things in ages!

 

I have the FURminator.  It works wonders on both my Saint AND my friends Golden Retriever.  It's a fantastic tool!