Bergamasco Sheepdog Grooming

About the Bergamasco Sheepdog

The site already carries three corded breeds, and this one is filed near them and needs the opposite instruction.

A Puli, a Komondor and a Spanish Water Dog form round rope-like cords, and a groomer separates those cords by hand as they grow so they do not fuse.

A Bergamasco does not make cords. It makes broad flat felted plates, sometimes called flocks, which look like wide flakes hanging off the body.

They come from three different hair types growing together and deliberately tangling: a dense oily undercoat, long harsh "goat hair", and a fine woolly hair that binds the other two.

The plates form over about five years and, once formed, the coat is essentially never brushed and rarely bathed.

A groomer who separates a Bergamasco into cords has destroyed the coat, and one who brushes it out has destroyed it faster.

Three hair types, and why they have to tangle

Most coats are one or two hair types. A Bergamasco has three, and they do different jobs.

The undercoat is fine, dense and oily, and it sits against the skin as waterproofing.

The "goat hair" is long, straight and harsh, and it grows through the undercoat.

The woolly hair is finer and softer, and it is the one that binds the other two together.

Left to itself, the woolly hair mats the goat hair and the undercoat into flat sheets, and those sheets are the finished coat. They are meant to happen. On a working dog in the Italian Alps they are armor against weather, wolves and thorn.

What that means for an owner is unusual: the goal is not to prevent matting but to control where it happens.

The plates start forming at around a year old and take roughly five years to reach full length, at which point they hang almost to the ground and the dog stops looking like a dog.

They stop growing on their own, so the coat does not need cutting back.

The one year when there is work to do

There is exactly one period of real grooming in a Bergamasco's life, and it is around the first year when the coat begins to felt.

Before that, the puppy coat is soft and single, and a weekly brush is fine.

When the goat hair and woolly hair start coming in, usually somewhere between ten and fifteen months, the coat begins to mat. At that point you stop brushing entirely and start tearing the forming mats apart into the plates you want.

That means physically pulling the felting mass apart with your fingers down to the skin, dividing it into broad flat sections roughly the width of a hand, so it sets as separate plates rather than one solid blanket over the whole dog.

It is done a few times over the felting period, not daily, and then it is essentially finished for life.

Get it wrong and the coat sets as one continuous pelt that has to be shaved off.

This is worth doing with guidance from a breeder or someone who has done it, because it is not intuitive and there is only one chance.

After that period, the coat needs nothing. No brushing, no combing, no clipping.

Bathing, and the three days of drying

A Bergamasco is bathed once or twice a year at most, and some are bathed less than that.

The coat is oily and self cleaning, dirt dries and falls out of the plates, and the breed is notably low odor for a dog that is essentially never washed.

The reason to bathe rarely is practical rather than aesthetic. A full set of plates holds an enormous amount of water and takes two to three days to dry all the way through, and a coat left damp at the skin will develop hot spots and smell.

So a bath is planned: warm weather, plenty of time, a high velocity dryer to move the bulk of the water, and then patience.

Never crate a wet Bergamasco or leave it damp indoors.

In between, hose off mud and let it dry, or let it dry and let the mud fall out, which mostly works.

Check the skin under the plates every few weeks by parting them at the shoulder, hip and belly, since anything hiding under a plate is invisible.

The coat also does not shed, which means ticks and burrs stay in it rather than dropping out.

Where it sits among the felted coats

Four breeds carry a coat that is deliberately allowed to felt, and they are not the same job.

Puli: round cords, formed and separated by hand from puppyhood, on a compact herding dog. A long project.

Komondor: the same cords on a very large livestock guardian, so more of them and more work.

Spanish Water Dog: cords that are shorn off entirely once a year, sheep style, rather than maintained.

Bergamasco: flat plates rather than cords, formed once over about a year and then left alone permanently.

So of the four, only the Bergamasco is genuinely low maintenance in the long run, and only after a year that must be done right.

All four share one rule that matters more than the differences: never let a groomer brush any of them out.

And all four share the drying problem. A felted coat holds water and must be dried to the skin.

What to tell your groomer

Say plates, not cords, and say it before anyone touches the dog.

Say the coat is never brushed and never separated into ropes.

Say the coat is never clipped except on veterinary advice.

If you book a bath, book the whole thing: high velocity dry and then time, since the coat takes two to three days to dry through.

Ask them to part the plates and check the skin at the shoulder, hip and belly.

If the dog is under two, say the coat is still forming and ask them not to intervene.

Keeping the coat between grooms

Common Questions About the Bergamasco Sheepdog