There’s Hair in my Throat

Posted on Nov 11 in Small Dog Care, Small Dog Groomingby Jeff K.Print

“There’s hair in my throat, hair in my eyes, hair in my nose, hair in my teeth, and don’t get me started about all the hair on the floor, walls, furniture, food, toilet seat, bedspread, blanket and sheets. There is hair everywhere, and it isn’t mine. All that hair belongs to my Labrador Retriever, or at least it used to.”

Oh, if I only had a Baht for every time I heard that statement, I could buy a pretty decent meal in Thailand. Yes, Labs shed so much they probably should have been called Labrador Releasers.

Here at Kelsey’s Dog House, you can tell when a groomer is blow drying a Lab by the sound that comes from the drying room: “Pffft, kack, pffft!” That sound comes from the groomer, not the equipment. No kidding, some grooming shops issue masks and goggles to their groomers to help them through the ordeal of grooming a Lab. (We have offered them to our groomers, but they have politely declined.)

If you are an owner of a Lab, or another breed of dog with a propensity to shed beyond reasonable expectations, this article is for you. For the rest of you owners of dogs that shed very little, don’t smirk. I’ll get to you later.

Here is the deal on shedding. (Hint. Skip this part):

The growth of hair is cyclical and most of the morphologic changes associated with the cycle occur in the lower half of the hair follicle. The active growth phase of the hair cycle is called “anagen”and is characterized histologically by a hair bulb surrounding an inverted follicular papilla and a fully formed inner sheath. The involutionary phase between active and no growth is known as “catagen”. In catagen, there is loss of the hair bulb and separation from the follicular papilla. Although a thickened follicular sheath and increased numbers of apoptotic cells in the outer sheath are present, the most defining feature of catagen is the partial replacement of the inner sheath by trichilemmal cornification as the hair bulb is lost and the follicular papilla evaginates. Telogen is the stage of senescence and is characterized by complete replacement of the inner sheath with trichilemmal cornification. 1

Got that? Me neither. As Homer Simpson said to his cardiac surgeon, “Can you dumb it down for me Doc?” Here it is in a nutshell. There are three phases to hair growth, in this order. 1. Active growth (anagen.) 2. A resting phase (telogen.) 3. Shedding (catagen.) Ironically (skip) . . .

. . . dogs have telogenpredominant hair cycles in which the hair shafts are retained in telogen follicles for long periods of time. 1 again

Again, what the good doctor is saying is dogs, in general, hang on to their hair. Apparently this guy has 1. Never kept a Lab, and, 2. Never had to vacuum his own house.

By the way, since I have been referring to that silky stuff on your dog’s body as hair, not fur, let’s clarify the terminology. Individual shafts of a dog’s coat are commonly referred to as hair. The entire collection of hairs is called fur, or a coat, at least in this neck of the woods.

If dogs show a propensity to hang on to their hair, why do some breeds shed so much? It turns out that various breeds, your Labrador included, have shorter periods of hair retention than other breeds. A healthy, unstressed Labrador Retriever typically has about 50% of the hairs on his coat in a resting phase. That means, you lucky Lab owner you, the other 50% of your Lab’s coat is either growing in or shedding out. This percentage varies with the seasons, diet, heath, stress, hormones, and how much you hate cleaning your house.

It gets worse. Dogs possess compound hair follicles. Unlike humans, that have one hair per pore, dogs hair follicles are formed in clusters with multiple hairs emerging from a single pore. Although the number of follicles per pore varies by location on the dog’s body, a Labrador can have up to 30(!) follicles per pore. Let’s do public math. If 50% of the hairs are not falling off your dog, and Mr. Porter’s car is traveling in the opposite direction at 35 miles per hour, how many hairs are falling into your cereal? That’s right! Your pup is a shedding machine. Aren’t you proud of him? No?

Since your dog’s hair is going to come out anyway, it may as well come out at the time and place of your choosing. You can take charge of the situation by thoroughly brushing your dog several times a week, or, if you are really caffeinated, once a day. You will want to use a densely bristled brush because the closer the spacing between brush bristles, the more loose hair will be trapped per brush stroke. A slicker brush, which has hundreds of closely spaced wire bristles will do the trick. As you brush, a lot of hair will hit the floor, so be sure to brush your dog in an area that is easy to clean.

Please be careful with a slicker brush. It can scrape your dog’s skin, causing what we in the biz call “brush burn.” If you would like to experience brush burn firsthand, scrape the slicker brush on the same place on your forearm over and over again. Then, go get the first-aid kit. The key to using a slicker brush properly, is to brush the fur, not the skin underneath. It takes a bit of practice, but it is not hard to learn. We can certainly show you the proper technique, the next time you visit us at Kelsey’s Dog House.

A grooming mitt is another good tool for removing loose hair. A grooming mitt is either a glove or an oval disc held onto your hand by a strap. The disc or glove is studded with short rubber prongs. As you brush with the mitt, the rubber prongs pull loose hair out of the fur so it can fall to the floor.  Although it cannot be misused like a slicker brush, (actually, with enough imagination, it can,) it does not penetrate as deeply into your dog’s coat as a slicker, and requires more time and energy to accomplish the same goal.

If you cannot keep up a brushing regimen, you can always have your dog’s coat length shortened in the extreme—something most dog groomers call a “shave down.” It gives your dog’s body the texture of a velvet sofa. An extreme shortening will make the remaining hair almost un-noticeable when it sheds. There is also some evidence that shaved hair may enter the resting phase of the growth cycle, slowing the rate of shedding, though more study needs to be done to prove this.

Have I thoroughly depressed you? I hope not. Living with a shedding dog just requires a few minutes of light work per day to keep the loose hair falling where you want it. Proper grooming helps too. Now get out there and brush like you have never brushed before.

Dear Reader: Referrals, or backlinks, are the internet equivalent of applause. If you enjoyed what you have read here, would you please take a moment to include a backlink to this website at your own website or blog? If you do so, please leave me a comment in the box below along with the address of your website. The link to my homepage is http://www.asmalldog.com. Thank you for your applause.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Related posts

• No related posts.