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Although necessary, most pet owners would agree that grooming their pet is not the most fun part of owning a pet. But, it’s unavoidable if you want to keep your pet clean and healthy. So read on and be sure to avoid these common mistakes when grooming your pet.
Having a routine for your pet’s grooming sessions helps to get your pet used to, and comfortable with, being groomed. If your pet has forgotten what their last grooming session felt like, then they may become agitated and stressed when you try to groom them the next time. It’s important to make sure that you keep to a regular grooming schedule for this reason, but also because it will make every major cat or dog grooming session less cumbersome if you’ve been grooming in between.
When it comes to the frequency of which you should be bathing your pet, this will ultimately depend on the type of pet you have and the coat that you’re dealing with. For example, it’s typical that a dog with a longer and thicker coat will require a bath every 4 to 6 weeks, compared to a dog with a shorter and thinner coat which would require much less frequent baths. On the other hand, cats don’t need regular baths at all, but you may need to do more grooming to long hair cats due to the length of its coat.
If you feel like you simply don’t have the time or skills to dedicate to giving your pet the grooming session that they deserve, or if your pet fights you when you try to groom them, then it may be a better idea to take them to a pet salon and have a professional groom them. You can easily get the cat or dog grooming tools that you need to keep your pet clean and healthy, so taking them into the pet salon might not be necessary.
A crucial step in grooming your pet is deshedding its coat to remove all of the dead hair and tangles. If you skip this step, speed through it, or use the wrong deshedding comb, then you may end up with knots and mats at the end of your pet’s bath. Different sized pets need differently sized deshedding combs, so a smaller dog or cat would require a comb the size of the King Komb Mini Pet Brush. On the other hand, a larger dog or horse would see much more benefit from a comb the size of the King Komb Deshedding tool.
Let’s be clear- you cannot use your own shampoo or body wash for your pet. Dogs, cats, and other animals require shampoo formulated specifically for their fur and skin, so using a product made for humans won’t give them what they need and may end up causing problems. But, it's also important to get a pet shampoo that’s hypoallergenic, eco-friendly, non-toxic, and made with natural ingredients that will only serve to help your pet’s skin, not harm it. Some all-natural pet shampoos, like the King Klean Natural Dog Shampoo, are made with natural oils and CBD oil, which may help to give your pet relief from stress while bathing them.
Many owners often neglect their pet’s paws, only paying attention to them when claws get too long. But, it’s also essential to keep your pet’s paws clean, especially since this area is prone to ringworm, roundworm, harmful parasites, and other toxic bacteria. Using a non-toxic foaming paw cleaner, like the Klean Paws Pet Paw Cleaner, should help to kill most of these bacteria and germs.
Grooming your pet isn’t just stressful for you; it’s also often very stressful and uncomfortable for the pet as well. In this situation, you may want to try a soothing product that can help to keep your pet calm and soothe their skin while you groom them, making the whole process easier for you and them. One of the newest, and reportedly effective, calming agents in soothing products for pets is CBD oil made from hemp. Soothing sprays, like King Kalm Soothe for Pets, are actually infused with pet relief CBD oil to help calm your pet’s skin, which will help them from itching while grooming.
We get it; you might not be a professional pet groomer, or you feel like you might not have time to go through an entire grooming session with your pet. But, that doesn’t mean you should be making any of the following mistakes when you’re grooming your pet.
If your pet has a long coat, then this mistake is especially egregious. When a dog or cat with long hair gets wet, their coat is more likely to become matted and tangled in water if it hasn’t been brushed out properly. Brushing your pet before getting them wet helps to get rid of tangled and dead hair from their coat, making it less likely that your pet will end up with tangled or matted clumps of hair.
It’s also important to give your pet a brushing after you’ve bathed and dried them because this step will help to get rid of any dead hair that the water may have loosened out of their coat. Of course, brushing your pet after a bath is much easier if you’ve also brushed their coat before the bath, which is why both of these steps are important to the overall grooming experience.
While it’s true that some pets don’t need a grooming session with the works very often, that doesn’t mean that you should be neglecting their grooming in between. Brushing your pet regularly is vital for keeping their coat free of dead hair and tangles, and also keeping your home free of shed hair. Often, pet owners will neglect to groom during the winter months because they feel that their pet needs the thicker coat for the colder weather. However, neglecting to give your pet a haircut during this time of year may actually result in matting and tangles once it starts to become warmer.
Most pet owners know one universal truth- clipping their pet’s nails is the hardest part of a grooming session. For this reason, nail clipping is often done as quickly as possible to get the task over with, which usually results in mistakes being made. One common and often traumatic mistake that’s made when cutting a pet’s nails is cutting the quick, which will cause your pet pain and sometimes bleeding. The best way to make the nail-cutting portion of grooming go as smoothly as possible is to help your pet become used to their paws being handled; this helps them not to squirm and pull, which can cause you to make mistakes when clipping.
If you’re rushing to get the grooming done and over with, you may end up getting soap or shampoo in your pet’s eyes. Thankfully, most modern pet shampoos are made with natural ingredients that are less likely to irritate your dog’s or cat’s eyes. However, it may still cause your pet discomfort and unnecessary stress, which will end up making them much less willing to sit still and be patient while being bathed.
Using clippers or electric razors with the wrong length of the blade can end up cutting your dog or cat’s fur too short, which won’t just lead to their coat looking uneven; it may also end up leaving their skin razor burned. This issue is often exacerbated by blades being old, broken or dull. If left untreated, razor burn can actually become inflamed and infected, so this is definitely a mistake that you don’t want to make.
Cat and dog grooming tools can be found easily at most pet supply stores. However, a wider variety of specialty grooming supplies, including combs, shampoos, paw cleaners, and soothing sprays, can be found online. But, be sure to only purchase from reputable merchants who clearly state the exact ingredients in their products, so that you can keep your pet away from any unknown and potentially harmful chemicals and materials.