Dogue de Bordeaux Grooming

About the Dogue de Bordeaux

The oldest French dog breed, a hundred pounds of mastiff with a head that is proportionally the largest in the canine world, and a coat that takes five minutes a week.

The coat is short, fine and soft, lying close over loose skin. A rubber mitt weekly, a bath every couple of months, nothing to trim, nothing to strip.

Everything that makes this dog work is on the face and it is daily.

Deep wrinkles across the muzzle and above the eyes trap moisture, food and drool, and skin folds that stay damp develop infection reliably rather than occasionally.

The other thing to say plainly is the life span. A Dogue de Bordeaux typically lives five to eight years, which is among the shortest of any breed, and it changes how an owner should think about veterinary attention: there is not much time to wait and see.

The face, every day

The wrinkles are not decoration. They are deep folds of skin that hold warmth, moisture, saliva and food debris, and the space inside a fold is exactly the environment yeast and bacteria want.

Clean the folds daily. Open each one with your fingers, wipe inside with a damp cloth or an unscented wipe, and then dry it. The drying matters more than the cleaning; a fold left damp is worse than one left alone.

The fold above the nose and the ones under the eyes are the ones that go wrong first.

Signs of trouble are a sour smell, redness, a brown or black discharge in the fold, or a dog rubbing its face on furniture.

Do not put powder in a fold. It cakes with moisture and makes the problem worse.

The drool is constant and heavy, and it soaks the chest and the front legs. Wipe the jowls after drinking, and wash the chest more often than the rest of the dog.

Keep a towel where the dog drinks. This is not a tidy breed and no amount of grooming changes that.

Heat, which is a grooming-room hazard

The Dogue is brachycephalic. The muzzle is very short, the airway is compromised by design, and the dog cannot cool itself the way a long nosed dog can.

Put a hundred pounds of that dog in a warm salon, under a dryer, with the stress of handling, and heatstroke is a genuine risk rather than a theoretical one.

Say it when booking. Ask for a cool room, no cage dryer at all, frequent breaks, water available and the appointment kept short.

A cage dryer is the specific thing to refuse. It is the standard way brachycephalic dogs die at groomers, and every good salon already knows it.

Watch for noisy breathing that gets worse, a dog that will not settle, a bright red or bluish tongue, or heavy unrelenting panting, and treat any of it as an emergency.

Book early morning appointments in summer.

The same applies at home: no exercise in the heat of the day, and a cool floor to lie on.

A hundred pounds on a table

Handling matters here for a different reason than on a toy dog: nobody lifts this dog.

Most Dogues are groomed on the floor or on a hydraulic table that lowers to the ground, and a dog that decides it is getting off will get off.

Train standing and handling from puppyhood, when the dog weighs twenty pounds instead of a hundred. It is the single most useful thing an owner of a giant breed can do.

Joints need respect. The breed carries hip and elbow dysplasia at a real rate and a young dog should not be jumping in and out of cars.

Keep the dog lean. Every extra pound sits on those joints, on a heart that already has work to do, and on an airway that is already compromised.

Feel for ribs monthly and weigh rather than eyeballing, since a heavy-boned dog hides gain.

Nails every three to four weeks and they are thick, so a grinder is often easier than clippers.

Check between the toes and the pads, which carry a lot of weight.

How the wrinkled breeds differ

Three heavily wrinkled breeds, and they need three different things.

Shar-Pei: the wrinkles come with a thickened skin condition and ear canals so narrow a vet often cannot get an otoscope in. The ears are the emergency.

Neapolitan Mastiff: the most extreme folds of any breed, including folds that hang over the eyes and cause eyelid problems needing surgery.

Dogue de Bordeaux: fewer and shallower folds than either, concentrated on the muzzle and brow, so daily cleaning and drying is usually enough.

So the Dogue is the most manageable of the three, which is not the same as easy.

What all three share is that the fold is a permanent damp space and the treatment is drying rather than cleaning products.

All three are also heavy, heat sensitive and short lived, and all three should be refused a cage dryer.

What to tell your groomer

Say the dog is brachycephalic and must never go under a cage dryer.

Ask for a cool room, a short appointment, breaks and water.

Ask for the facial folds cleaned and thoroughly DRIED, and no powder in them.

Say the chest and front legs need washing properly, because of the drool.

Ask for a low or hydraulic table, since nobody is lifting a hundred pound dog safely.

Say the coat itself is a rubber mitt and nothing else.

Keeping the coat between grooms

Common Questions About the Dogue de Bordeaux