Author: Robin Darch
www.articlebase.com
Collies come in two different varieties, “smooth” and “rough.” Rough collies require much more grooming, but smoothes do need to be groomed regularly to keep their coats healthy. Collies have a double coat of hair, meaning there is a thick undercoat and an outer coat of thinner and flatter hair.
A smooth collie has shorter hair like that of a Labrador or Dalmatian. The hair is short and smooth with a thick undercoat. Rough collies have a long and flowing topcoat and a dense undercoat. You can keep your collie looking good, no matter what the variety, with regular brushing.
You’ll need a pin brush, a slicker brush, a comb, scissors and a spray bottle filled with a conditioner spray. You can buy a commercial conditioner spray, or make your own using 1 to 2 tablespoons of dog conditioner diluted with water. Make sure it is diluted well or the spray will make your Collie’s coat greasy.
Make sure to spray your dog’s hair thoroughly before you start to brush. Never brush a Collie’s coat dry because it will break their hair. If you have a rough collie, part the dog’s hair and brush from the roots out. The pin brush can be used if your dog is not shedding and is free of matting.
The slicker brush and comb are helpful for shedding dogs and for removing mats. If a mat cannot be brushed out of the Collie’s hair, you can cut it out. Collies most often have matted hair behind their ears, underneath the front legs and on their underbelly so make sure to check those areas carefully. For a smooth collie, a slicker brush will suffice for both the undercoat and outer coat.
You should brush your collie everyday during shedding seasons, and at least once a week when they are not shedding. Regular brushing is important to remove the dead hair. If left alone, the dead hair will cause hot spots on your dog’s skin.
Collies generally do not require all over trimming, but you might want to keep their feet trimmed. With a small pair of scissors, carefully trim the hair around each footpad.
This will keep your collie’s feet clean. While you are working with your collie’s feet, you can also trim the nails. This should be done every 1 to 2 weeks to keep the nails from getting too long.
If your collie is a puppy, you can train them to be used to a Dremel tool with a sandpaper attachment. Apply light pressure with the Dremel and grind down to just before the pink quick.
The alternative to using the Dremel is to use a standard dog nail trimmer. Before you clip the dog’s nails, find the pink quick and cut just before that point. Cutting into the quick will make the dog’s nail bleed. If this happens, styptic powder is helpful to have on hand to stop the bleeding.
Finally, remember to clean your Collie’s ears about once a week. You can purchase a canine ear cleaner at any pet store. Squirt the ear cleaner into your dog’s ear canal and then rub the base of the ear. This will help the ear cleaner coat the inside of the ear canal. You can use a cotton ball to remove the excess cleaner and then allow the ear canal to dry naturally.
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6 Responses to Grooming your Collie
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It’s the first time I comment here and I must say you give us genuine, and quality information for bloggers! Great job.
p.s. You have a very good template for your blog. Where did you find it?
i Love your site and my dog (a tricoulored lassie) has benifitted from it alot thank you soooooo much!
thank you for the info. I just got a tricollie (Purebred)from a lady in a wheelchair. She is 7 yrs old and I don”t think she was ever brushed as shes so matted. Hope to get the mats out and her white collor clean. Very gentle and I hope for a long life for her. The information is very useful
Okay, I have a few corrections that should be made to the above article.
First, coat and skin:
For weekly grooming session you don’t need to wet the coat before brushing. A dry pin brush does not break the coat. I don’t know where this tid-bit came from, but it is incorrect. Doing so actually creates more drag on the coat and pulls at their skin unnecessarily. Yes, you see people in the grooming areas at the shows using a squirt bottle to dampen the coat while they brush. They are actually brushing against the way the coat grows and this is to fluff the coat and is a bit more involved than it appears. Just brush your dog ten minutes a day or 45 minutes a week, and all will be lovely.
When cutting mats out of coat, don’t cut straight across the mat or close to the skin. A) you risk cutting the dog and B) you’ll have a big, fat hole. What I suggest instead is holding the mat away from the skin and with scissor-points downward, toward the base of the mat, cut the mat into strips. Work at them with your slicker brush until they are free. I also suggest using a spray-on, leave-in conditioner/ detangler behind the ears and at the arm-pits, maybe even the skirts/pants if your dog tends to mat there. The human-use “Aussie Hair Insurance” is wonderful for this – I’ve been using it for years.
Also, don’t bathe your Collie any more than once a month, and even that may be too much for some dogs. Collies can have dry skin and bathing dries it out even more. Frequent brushing will help move the naturally occurring oils through the coat and keep your Collie looking great. If you have a mud situation, just a hose and a light shampoo on the affected areas should do the trick. After a bath, even a half-bath, please makes sure you dry your Collie completely. Moist coat next to the skin can create hot spots, and those are no fun for anyone.
Second, when cleaning ears, please, for the love of God, don’t squirt anything in the ear. Some Q-tips and occasionally some rubbing alcohol on some TP once a week will be fine, trust me. Collies don’t have nasty ears like Labs, Bassets, etc. and if they need an extensive cleaning where something must be squirted in the ear, let your vet do it and show you how much is to be used. Too much can damage the ear.
Third – toenails. That quick comes up pretty fast and not all of them have white toenails where it is easy to see what you are doing. It hurts when you get the quick – it’s like having the end of your finger chopped off, so take care. When you are using a dremel, check with your finger periodically and when it starts to feel soft, stop grinding. If you grind them too close you may end up with bloody paws (and carpets, etc) after they’ve run around outside and abraded those soft spots. If you have to get long toenails much shorter you can do it more than once a week. That quick _will_ recede as you get close – just keep at it, a little bit twice a week and you’ll have lovely, short toenails in about 4 weeks.
*Keep in mind that the rotation of the dremel heats up the nail and it will make it uncomfortable for them, so switching toes often can help. Also, those dremels can grab coat very easily and a trick I like to do for duclaws is to poke a hole in a plastic bag and stick the toenail through, making sure the bag is snug around the foot, protecting the coat.
As far as getting them used to the dremel, high-value treats, like little bits of chicken breast, go a long way toward ensuring compliance. Do a toe, get a treat, happy Collie.
For all of my notes on using a dremel, it is still the best way going. Back in the day, we used to use a #12 flat file from the hardware store!
In case you were wondering why I am so opinionated and where I get my info, my family has been showing collies since 1972 and I have lost count of how many baths, grooming sessions and toenails I’ve done in the 39 years I’ve been caring for Collies.
Z~
I have a few notes to add.
A) The type of pin brush you use matters. The ones available at the usual pet supply retailers are terrible because they have little nubs, plastic or metal, on the business ends of those pins. The plastic nubs eventually come off, but in the meantime, like the metal ones, they do pull on coat. Like I said in my above post, water just makes the pulling worse. Get your grooming equipment from vendors at the dog show or mail order. Keep in mind the good stuff isn’t cheap, but if you take care of your equipment, it will take care of your Collie for years to come.
Here’s where I get mine: http://www.chrissystems.com/brushes.htm
B) Re: Bathing: dilute your shampoo 50/50 with water and be sure to rinse completely. Most shampoos are too concentrated for sensitive Collie skin.
C) When doing toenails, get yourself a pair of blunt-tipped scissors and turn the foot over and trim in between the pads. All that hair between the pads attracts debris – foxtails and other stickers, mud that becomes dry dirt clods, etc. Those kinds of things can create irritation of the skin, the irritation can create sores, and sores attract infection. So, trim between those pads! Also check between toes for debris, but trimming there will make feet look funny and attracts relatively fewer debris anyway, so just get in there with your fingers and pull out the debris.
D) Vitamins! You might think you are doing your dog a favor by adding nutritional supplements to her food, but unless your Collie has a skin or coat problem to begin with, you may be doing more harm than good. If you are feeding these supplements and your Collie has or is developing a dry, brittle coat, stop the supplements. Just buy a good food, one without garlic and onions*, and let it go at that. If you are starting to compete in dog-sports like showing and agility, you can reassess your Collie’s nutritional needs. At that point, talk with your Collie’s breeder for advice.
*Garlic and Onions have been associated with triggering Immune Mediated Hemolyic Anemia and as Collies are prone to immune issues anyway, it’s better to be safe than sorry. That means no “flea control” garlic tablets.
I’m sure I’ll think of more things, and I’ll post them as I do.
Dear Zanna:
I have just stumbled over your comment on collie grooming and it is by far the most reasonable and helpful article I have come across so far.
20 years ago, My husband died and I moved my young daughters to Ohio. I told them when I could afford a house, I would get them a dog- and I did. A dalmatian – then 2 more. I still have one 14 year old dalmatian but I also now have 2 collies. My point being that I now own these 2 collies without the experience to take care of them. I am by no means trying to turn these dogs into show dogs but I would love to take these wonderful rescue dogs and turn them into beautiful pets. The information I had read prior to yours
just did not seem to either work, or be feasible. I was so glad to see that you recommend not to spray them down – It is winter here and I battle snow balls and frozen fur enough without spraying them down. I am glad you also told me about the brush because everyone was saying use a slicker but it seemed to be tearing their fur. I do have a question. One of the collies had a staph infection on the inside of both her back legs and I had to have her shaved for treatment. Do I need to do anything special to her shaved skin to promote her hair growing in nice?
Once again, thank you so much for sharing your time and your knowledge. It is very helpful to people like me who want to do the right thing – but am not sure how. My gratitude.
Margaret