The Fur Plan

Thick double coat · i clean every day and it never ends

Double-coated dog hair everywhere, and the floors eat your time

Coats like this: Golden Retriever, German Shepherd, Siberian Husky, Border Collie, Australian Shepherd, Corgi, Pomeranian, Bernese Mountain Dog, Collie (rough), Cattle Dog, Samoyed, Malamute, Shiba Inu, Akita, Shetland Sheepdog, Newfoundland, Saint Bernard, Chow Chow. Thick double coats shed soft undercoat that comes out in clumps and drifts.

Change this first
You're cleaning what has already fallen. Try taking some of it off the coat first, and cut the cleaning down to one spot.
Why

Your thick double coat sheds soft undercoat that comes out in clumps and drifts, and the supply doesn't stop, so cleaning feels daily by definition. Two things change the daily load: how much loose hair comes off on a brush instead of the floor, and how much of the house you treat as needing daily attention.

Today

Brush for five minutes tonight with whatever you have for now — a damp rubber glove or even a damp hand lifts some loose coat — and see the buying section for what suits this coat, outside if you can. Look at the pile; some of that would have ended up in the house. Then pick one spot — where they sleep — as the only place you clean daily for a week.

What you can stop doing

  • Daily whole-floor cleaning, for one week. Do the sleeping spot daily and the rest twice a week, then see whether anything actually got worse.
  • Shopping for another gadget before the week is up. See what the brushing and the one-spot rule do first.
What comes next
  • Brush with whatever you have for now — a damp rubber glove or even a damp hand lifts some loose coat — and see the buying section for what suits this coat, and once the daily amount drops, settle at a couple of times a week. Loose hair on the brush is hair that doesn't land in the house. If the skin looks pink afterwards, you're pressing too hard or going too often.
When shedding gets heavier

Most heavy-shedding coats let go in waves, often as the seasons turn. Brush more often while it lasts and go back to normal when the hair on the brush thins out. How heavy and how long varies by animal and by how much time they spend indoors, so go by what comes off the brush, not the calendar.

Only if you decide to buy something
A brush for this coat: a brush that reaches the undercoat — a rake, a slicker or a pin brush all work, used gently so the pins never scrape skinOnly if you don't have anything that reaches loose coat. Gentle; the pins should never scrape skin.

We don't sell products or earn commissions. These are things to look for; the shopping is yours.

The goal isn't zero hair. It's a routine short enough that you'll actually keep doing it.

If the shedding has suddenly got much heavier, or there are bald patches, red skin or a lot of scratching, that's a vet visit first, not a cleaning plan.

This page assumes you own no tools yet.Tell the planner what you already have and it rewrites the plan around it, and tells you if there's nothing to buy.Adjust this plan for my home