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Dog Grooming by Breed

How often each breed needs a groom, and what tends to go wrong

Dogs of many breeds and coat types being groomed

Grooming needs vary more between dog breeds than almost anything else about them. A Labrador needs a bath and a deshed a few times a year. A Poodle of the same weight needs cutting every four to six weeks and combing to the skin in between, and letting that slip by a month costs real money at the salon.

Coat type is the one that answers the question. Whether a dog needs a haircut every five weeks or a deshed twice a year, whether it can be clipped at all, and what happens if the interval slips, are all decided by the coat and not by the breed name. Two dogs of the same weight in the same group can need completely different appointments.

Size decides the physical side: drying time, whether one person can handle the dog safely, and whether a salon has equipment that will take it.

Every Dog Breed, A to Z

206 breeds, page 5 of 9

A Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen, the larger of two breeds left deliberately rough

Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen

A separate breed from the Petit rather than a bigger one, with the same rough coat rule

Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen
A Great Dane, a tiny coat on the largest body a salon will handle

Great Dane

The smallest coat on the largest dog, where every part of the job is a logistics problem

Great Dane
A Great Pyrenees, a thick white double coat on a giant frame

Great Pyrenees

A white weatherproof coat built to live outdoors, on a dog that must not be clipped

Great Pyrenees
A Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, a short coat on a very large frame

Greater Swiss Mountain Dog

The short coated Bernese, with all the shedding and none of the brushing

Greater Swiss Mountain Dog
A Greyhound, almost no coat over a very lean athletic frame

Greyhound

Five minutes of coat, and four things that are genuinely specific to the breed

Greyhound
A Havanese, a long soft wavy coat that mats quietly

Havanese

A long soft wavy coat that mats quietly, and a puppy coat change that catches everyone

Havanese
An Ibizan Hound, in smooth and wire coats from the same litters

Ibizan Hound

Smooth and wire coats in the same litters, and a sighthound's thin skin either way

Ibizan Hound
An Icelandic Sheepdog, a thick spitz coat in two lengths within one breed

Icelandic Sheepdog

Iceland's only native breed, in two coat lengths, and it sheds like a Nordic dog

Icelandic Sheepdog
An Irish Setter, a fine silky coat with heavy feathering everywhere

Irish Setter

A fine silky coat with feathering everywhere, on a dog that wants to run through everything

Irish Setter
An Irish Water Spaniel, ringlets everywhere except a smooth rat tail

Irish Water Spaniel

Crisp ringlets over the whole dog except the tail, which is bare by design

Irish Water Spaniel
An Irish Wolfhound, a harsh coat that is raked and stripped, never clipped

Irish Wolfhound

A harsh rough coat that is raked and stripped, never clipped, on the tallest breed there is

Irish Wolfhound
An Italian Greyhound, one of the most fragile frames in dogs

Italian Greyhound

Five minutes of coat on one of the most fragile frames in dogs

Italian Greyhound
A Jack Russell Terrier in all three of its coats: smooth, broken and rough

Jack Russell Terrier

Three coats in one breed, and only one of them behaves the way a terrier coat should

Jack Russell Terrier
A Japanese Chin, a silky single coat over a very flat face

Japanese Chin

A long silky single coat that is far less work than it looks, over a very flat face

Japanese Chin
A Keeshond, a huge standing coat and the distinctive spectacle markings

Keeshond

A standing spitz coat and a set of face markings that must never be tidied away

Keeshond
A Kerry Blue Terrier, a soft coat that is scissored rather than stripped

Kerry Blue Terrier

A terrier with a soft coat that is scissored, not stripped, and born black

Kerry Blue Terrier
A Komondor, thick felted cords that take days to dry

Komondor

Thick felted cords on a guardian, and a coat that can take two days to dry

Komondor
A Kooikerhondje, whose black eartips are a breed feature and not dirt

Kooikerhondje

Black eartips that are a breed feature, and a gene pool small enough to matter

Kooikerhondje
A Kuvasz, a white guardian coat that is never clipped

Kuvasz

A white guardian double coat that sheds dirt on its own and is never clipped

Kuvasz
A Labradoodle in a full fleece coat

Labradoodle

The original doodle, and the one whose coat varies most from dog to dog

Labradoodle
A Labrador Retriever, a short coat over a full undercoat

Labrador Retriever

A short coat with a full undercoat under it, and the shedding to prove it

Labrador Retriever
A Lagotto Romagnolo, a woolly working curl that is scissored rather than brushed out

Lagotto Romagnolo

A working curl that is kept short and left in ringlets, which is the opposite of a Poodle

Lagotto Romagnolo
A Lakeland Terrier, a hand stripped jacket on a compact fell terrier

Lakeland Terrier

A harsh fell terrier jacket over soft furnishings, and the furnishings are the work

Lakeland Terrier
A Leonberger, a mane and a double coat on a giant water dog

Leonberger

A mane, a water resistant double coat and a hundred and fifty pounds of it

Leonberger

Why Cat Size Does Not Change the Groom

Cats have no size index here. Outside the genuine outliers the practical difference between a nine pound cat and a fourteen pound one is close to nothing: the same table, the same equipment, the same appointment. What changes a cat groom is the coat and the temperament.

The one place weight does matter is indirect: a heavy cat cannot reach its own back, sides and base of tail, and the areas it stops reaching are exactly the ones that mat. That is a coat problem with a weight cause, and it is covered on the silky coat and double coat pages.

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