Two Weeks a Year, One Dog Can Fill a Vacuum Canister

When does shedding season actually hit in Dallas?

You empty the vacuum, run it over the living room rug once, and the canister is full again. Same dog, same rug, and it's been like this for over a week.

It happens twice a year, and neither time is when people expect. Spring is the obvious one. The one that blindsides everybody is autumn, which starts in September while the porch thermometer still reads in the nineties. Shedding is triggered by daylight. The days begin shortening in midsummer and the coat starts turning over long before the weather turns. In most of the country the shed and the cool air show up together. Our summer runs from May into October, so here the coat and the weather disagree for a good stretch. There's more on that gap in the September coat flip.

How long does the heavy part last?

The dramatic stretch is short. A week or two where the dog seems to be dissolving in front of you, fur on every cushion, a grey drift along the skirting boards, hair in your coffee. Then it settles into a steady tail that keeps going well after you thought it was finished.

What decides how bad your house gets isn't really the dog. It's whether the dead coat comes out of him on purpose or falls out of him at random.

Which dogs do this, and which ones just shed all the time?

Double coats blow coat. Huskies, malamutes, shepherds, corgis, goldens, aussies, and every mixed dog carrying that build. They dump undercoat in a rush, twice a year, and in between they're relatively tidy. If you've got a husky, the double coat routine is its own animal and it's written up in husky grooming and double coat care.

Smooth coats shed year round instead. Labs, boxers, beagles, staffies. It doesn't come in waves, it just never stops, and those short bristly hairs weave into upholstery worse than undercoat does.

Curly and wavy coats shed the least onto your floor and the most into themselves. Doodles, poodles, bichons. The hair doesn't leave the dog, it stays in the coat and turns into mats. Different problem, same cause.

Does a de-shed bath do anything a brush cannot?

Yes, and it's mostly the dryer, not the shampoo. Warm water and hands working the coat loosen the dead undercoat off the skin. Then the force dryer blows it out of the coat, from the skin outward, in a way no brush gets near.

Every bath includes the wash, the blow out, a nail trim, ear cleaning and a finishing spritz. On a heavy shedder the blow out is where most of the appointment goes. The whole thing runs about an hour, and many are done inside ninety minutes.

Pricing goes by size and coat. A bath starts at $75 for a small smooth coat and runs up to about $180 for an extra large double coat, and the big double coats are the ones this whole article is about. If you want the haircut too, a full groom starts at $130.

Expect a day or two of extra shedding afterward. We've loosened what was still hanging on, and the last of it works its way out. It's a small tax on a much bigger win.

What should I be doing at home?

An undercoat rake, not a slicker, for the bulk of the work. A slicker is a finishing tool. It tidies the top of the coat and leaves the packed layer underneath exactly where it was.

Brush dry. Work in sections, lift the top coat with one hand and rake from the skin outward. Behind the ears, the chest ruff, the back of the thighs, the armpits, the base of the tail. Ten minutes three or four times a week beats an hour once a fortnight, and the dog tolerates it better too.

Go outside to do it if the weather lets you. Everybody in North Dallas with a shepherd learns that lesson exactly once.

Two things that don't help as much as people hope. Vacuum attachments that fit on the dog work on about one dog in ten, and the other nine never forgive you. And a bath with no proper dry afterward can make things worse, because you've wet the undercoat and left it packed.

Is shaving him the answer?

Not for a double coat. The guard hair blocks sun and holds a layer of air against the skin, which is doing more for him in August than most people realise. Shave it off and you've taken away the shade and left the undercoat, which is the hot woolly part.

It also doesn't grow back the way it was. The undercoat comes in faster than the guard hair, so the coat ends up denser, softer and worse at its job, sometimes for good on an older dog.

Get the dead coat out instead. That's the thing that actually cools him down.

Shedding season isn't a grooming failure and it isn't a diet problem. It's a healthy dog changing kit for the next stretch of weather. The only real question is whether the old coat ends up in the van or on your sofa.