Hey Woofa’s,

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a summer girl through and through.  I love the warmer weather!

This year however, I’m still waiting for summer to truly arrive.  We have had a handful of what I would call truly summer days, but that’s it.

For the three months that we are meant to get hot summer weather, we’ve had mostly cooler rainy (sometimes humid) days.

I mean when we were painting the back two bedrooms I was wearing tracksuit pants and a jumper!!!!!! In Summer!!!!!! WT??

Also, don’t get me started on the summer food we’re meant to be binging on – bbq steaks and salads and all that yummy summer food.  Lately, we’ve been having roast dinners, well I’m not complaining about the actual roast dinner BUT that’s winter food!

To say I’m all over the place is an understatement!  For someone who loves and thrives on order, this is truly doing my head in.

I know I can’t control what weather patterns we have, I can only control my reaction to them………………

I’m not really doing a great job on that, but I’m working on it.

WHAT’S THIS GOT TO DO WITH DOGS?

Good question – for the last few months I’ve had a lot of clients coming into the salon complaining that their dog is still malting.

Malting means –  naturally losing their hair and shedding it out – mostly all over the house, hence the complaining.

And dogs are still losing their hair when normally this time of year they should’ve finished malting by now.

HOW YOUR DOG’S HAIR CYCLE WORKS (IDEALLY)!

See what normally happens with your dog’s hair cycle is this –

In Autumn(Fall)/Winter – your dog’s hair will start to thicken up so by the time Winter comes all that extra hair keeps them warm.

In Spring – when Spring comes around all that extra hair your dog had to keep them warm in winter, will start to malt/shed a.k.a fall out of their body.

So when Summer arrives your dog’s hair is thinner in order to be cooler in the summer months.

WHY IS MY DOG STILL MALTING?

So to answer the question, Why is my dog still malting – it’s because we haven’t had a proper summer cycle.

Summer of 2020/2021 has not been it’s normal hot self.

We’ll have a random hot day, then we’ll get rain and a much cooler few days, some humid days – basically this year’s summer weather is like playing bingo!

So your dogs hair will respond to the environment, because the hot weather is very sporadic this year, so is your dog’s malting coat.

I’m grooming dogs and am still being covered in hair by the end of it, and that’s usually something that occurs only in Spring time grooming!

Malting will start when the weather is warmer but because it’s all over the place so is the malting process in your dog’s coat.

With the hotter weather your dog will start the malting process, but it will halt when we get the cooler weather and then start again when it’s a bit warmer and so on……….

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

Well, as much as I’d like to control the weather and keep them within their correct months, I can’t and nor can you.

So what we can do to help our dogs out during this sporadically weathered time, is keep them brushed and groomed.

Brush them as often as you can, because the hair will keep coming out.

I have customers who believe that after I’ve groomed their dogs, the malting will stop!!!

Not the case, I’ve got that lot of malting hair out of them, in the next few days there will be more – not because I’ve done a crap job, but because of the way the weather is right now.

So brush, brush, brush away……………..

Oh shaving your dog off won’t help too much either because even the short haired dogs are malting like crazy!!!

Any breed crossed with a Poodle and Poodle breeds are usually dogs that don’t malt (which is why they’re so popular) however, their coats still require a lot of maintenance and YES you still have to brush, brush, brush them.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

Our summer weather pattern here in NSW, Australia, right now is very sporadic aka all over the place, a hot day here, a few cold days here, a few cold and rainy days here – it’s not consistently hot like we normally get.

So this is causing our dog’s coats to still be malting in Summer.

The best thing you can do for your dog right now is to consistently brush your dog.

IN THE COMMENTS BELOW – BILLY WOULD LIKE TO KNOW – HOW YOU AND YOUR DOG ARE COPING WITH THIS CRAZY SUMMER WEATHER?