Dog Grooming

THE MANY BENEFITS OF DOG GROOMING

Everyone takes for granted taking a shower every day. Dog grooming is important because pets need to be frequently bathed and combed to look and feel their best! Bathing an animal and keeping it combed out helps maintain its core body temperature of 102.0 F. When the skin is cool, it can breathe without the animal feeling clammy or overheated.

One of the benefits of frequent dog grooming are those things that you can not see. The skin consists mainly of two layers; the epidermis and the dermis. There is constant epithelial cell sloughing. Cell death means the cells have to be rid of the body. Bathing and grooming helps with this. If the debris is not removed it can clog the pores of skin glands and lead to excessive production of sebum; which than leads to the numerous variations of seborrhea.

Soap not only cleans but is antibacterial. This keeps bacteria away from any cut or scrape on the animals skin surface. The skin is the largest organ in the body and forms the integument. The skin protects the inside from any microscopic attack as long as the skin surface is not broken! Let’s face it. Soap also helps to keep “doggy odor” under control!

WHAT IF A PET IS NOT GROOMED?

One of the first things that happens when an animal is not groomed is the formation of mattes. I have seen groomers in hospitals shave off an entire dog! It looks like the groomer is slowly taking off a jacket!! Mattes can lead to an overheating of the core body temperature and also invite moisture retention on the skin surface. This leads to bacterial (pyodermas), yeast (Malassezia sp) and other skin diseases.

Newborn kittens spend most of their time sleeping and nursing on mom.

Dog grooming is an important way of maintaining a clean, healthy coat and prevents skin diseases at the same time.

IMMEDIATE DOG GROOMING TIMES

An animal suffering from heat exhaustion and or heat stroke needs to be cooled down immediately to reduce the core body temperature. This is accomplished by hosing and bathing the animal over a determined period of time.
When an animal is scratching intensely from whatever cause, the skin becomes extremely hot and sensitive. Bathing the animal with cool water and a soothing shampoo containing oatmeal (Episoothe®) will make the animal feel so much better.
Prescription shampoos are used to treat many medical conditions such as staph pyodermas or yeast infections. Shampoos containing chlorhexidine, ketoconazole or a combination of these two will work just fine. The trick: Bathe the dog or cat twice a week for two weeks than once a week forever. Make sure you leave the product on the skin for at least 20 minutes before rinsing.