Hey Woofa’s,

I’ve been grooming a lot of dogs lately and they are losing hair like no tomorrow!

I take a brush and/or the dryer to a dog and it’s snowing dog hair before you know it.

Even Billy is losing hair all over the place.  I’m regularly saying to him as I vacuum for the umpteenth time – Lucky I Love You Billy!

It’s no surprise to anyone that our weather has been a little off lately.

And thanks to La Nina we’ve had a rather wet December, January, February and now March!

Normally in those months we’re enduring nice warm (sometimes stinking hot) weather for our Spring and Summer but this year, not so much.

Our weather has been all over the place and some days we can have all seasons in one day!

WHAT’S THIS GOT TO DO WITH DOGS – I HEAR YOU ASK?

Well our weather patterns have an effect on our dog’s hair.

For the last few months I’ve had a lot of clients coming into the salon surprised by the fact that their dog is still malting.

Malting means –  naturally losing their hair and shedding it out.

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)!

What normally happens with your dog’s hair cycle is  –

1. 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.
2. 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 IN MARCH?

Basically it’s  because we haven’t had a proper summer cycle.

As I said above, our weather over the last 4-5 months hasn’t been our usual hot spring/summer we normally have.

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 spring and summer weather is like playing bingo!

Given our dogs hair  responds to the environment, because the hot weather is very sporadic this year, so is your dog’s malting coat.

We haven’t had consistent hot weather so our dogs coat hasn’t malted consistently.

It’s been a start and stop process, because the weather has been usually cooler this time of year our dogs have kept their coats on believing that’s what it needs to keep a bit warmer.

Then when we do actually get a few warmer days the hair will start malting because it’s thinning out for our summer weather.

HOWEVER, now that we’ve reached March and we’re into Autumn/Fall our dog’s hair will start to thicken up ready for winter – AND they haven’t even lost last years hair yet!!!

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

Well, as much as I’d like to control the weather – I can’t and nor can you.

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…………….. or book them in to be groomed by a Dog Groomer.

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.

We have to do the work that nature normally does, because at the moment nature is all over the place.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

In NSW, Australia, right now our weather is all over the place thanks to La Nina!

This is causing our dog’s hair to still be malting in MARCH!

The best thing you can do for your dog right now is to consistently brush your dog or take them to a Dog Groomer, regularly, who can do this for you!

IN THE COMMENTS BELOW – BILLY WOULD LIKE TO KNOW – HOW YOU ARE COPING WITH YOUR DOG’S MALTING?