Komondor Grooming

About the Komondor

This is the third corded coat on the site and the three are not the same job.

A Puli is separated into narrow ropes that are kept for life. A Spanish Water Dog is shorn to one length once a year and left alone entirely. A Komondor makes thick, wide, flat felted cords, more like felt plates than ropes, on a dog that can weigh a hundred and thirty pounds.

Everything about the Puli page scales up here, and one thing changes in kind: drying. A full corded Komondor coat holds an extraordinary volume of water, and getting it dry to the skin can take a day and a half to two days. That single fact governs the entire routine.

The dog underneath is a livestock guardian bred to work alone against wolves, which is the other thing to plan for.

How the cords form, and splitting them

A Komondor puppy has a soft curly coat that can be brushed. Somewhere around eight to twelve months the soft undercoat and the coarser outer coat begin tangling together, and that is when the brush is put away permanently.

From then on the job is splitting. As the coat clumps, you take a forming mat in both hands and tear it apart down to the skin, dividing wide plates into narrower cords. It is done dry, by hand, with no tools.

Komondor cords are meant to be substantial, considerably thicker and flatter than a Puli's, and they keep growing for the dog's life. On a mature dog in full coat they can reach the ground.

The work is heaviest in the first two years while the coat is deciding what it wants to be, and it is ongoing after that: every few weeks, go through the whole dog by hand, split anything that has merged at the root, and check the skin underneath.

Neglect for long enough and the cords fuse into a single felted mat against the body. At that point the only humane option is to shear the whole coat off and start again, which is several years of growth.

Trim the ends level if the cords reach the ground and collect debris, and keep the sanitary area, pads and the hair around the eyes clear.

The bath, and the two day dry

This is the fact that should decide whether somebody takes on the breed.

A full corded coat on a dog this size soaks up an enormous quantity of water and gives it back extremely slowly. Washing itself is slow, because shampoo has to be worked into every cord and then rinsed completely out, and residue left inside a cord irritates skin nobody can see.

Then the drying. Squeeze water out of the cords by hand, towel repeatedly, and use stand dryers on cool or warm air for hours. Realistically, from wet to genuinely dry at the skin is somewhere between a day and a half and two days, and in humid weather longer.

A coat put away damp sours, smells and grows mold and skin infection at the roots, and on a dog with this much coat you will smell it before you see it.

So bathe rarely, roughly two to four times a year, and plan it. Start in the morning, on a dry warm day, with somewhere the dog can be while it finishes drying.

Spot clean between: the beard, the feet, the rear and anything the dog rolls in.

Some owners keep a working Komondor in a shorter shorn coat precisely to avoid all this, and that is a legitimate choice rather than a failure.

Checking the skin under the cords

Under a fully corded coat the skin is completely hidden, and that changes what you have to do.

Every time you go through the cords, part them and look. Feel for heat, damp, lumps, scabs and thin patches, and check the whole dog rather than the easy parts.

Hot spots develop fast under a damp corded coat and can be extensive before anything is visible from the outside.

Parasites are the other reason. Fleas and ticks are very hard to spot in cords, and a tick can attach and feed for days without being seen, so preventive treatment matters more here than on a short coated dog.

Check the ears, which are drop ears buried in coat, and keep the hair around the opening clear.

The face is worth its own attention: keep the hair around the eyes and mouth trimmed so the dog can see and so food does not rot in the cords around the muzzle.

A Komondor that suddenly objects to being handled somewhere specific is telling you where to look.

A livestock guardian, and finding anyone to groom it

Komondorok were bred to live with a flock and make their own decisions about threats without waiting to be told, and that is not a temperament that takes kindly to a stranger in a salon handling it for four hours.

Most owners do the coat themselves. Realistically that is the only workable answer for a corded coat on a guardian breed, and it is why so much of this page is written for an owner rather than a groomer.

If you do use a professional, find one who has handled corded coats and guardian breeds, have them meet the dog first, and be completely honest about temperament.

Start handling in puppyhood and make it relentless routine, because a hundred and thirty pound guardian that has decided it does not want its feet touched is not going to be persuaded at three years old.

Nails are a two person job. Expect an appointment, if you get one, to be long and expensive.

The breed is also heat sensitive under that coat, so grooming sessions should be somewhere cool and unhurried.

What to tell your groomer

Say the coat is corded and must never be brushed, combed or dematted, and say it more than once.

Say whether you want the cords kept, the ends trimmed, or the coat shorn off.

Ask how long they can dry the dog for, and be clear that a day is normal and a damp coat is a genuine health problem.

Ask them to part the cords and report on the skin, since neither of you can see it otherwise.

Ask for the eyes and mouth kept clear, the ears checked and the sanitary area and pads trimmed.

Be honest about how the dog is with strangers, and arrange a meeting before the first appointment.

Keeping the coat between grooms

Common Questions About the Komondor