How to Care for your Old Dog's Coat

Video Transcript

"As your dog becomes older, becomes geriatric, they might not be as comfortable having some of the maintenance done on them. Your care, nail care, coat care. It's very important that you maintain a routine with these guys. You might need to get a softer more gentle brush. Certainly, the hair is going to be growing and shedding. Sometimes they actually start shedding a little bit more, so you just want to do a gentles, soft...good girl, good girl...routine that you work with the dog. It will certainly keep the coat cleaner and as you're doing this, you have a chance to go over the dog and make sure that there's no growths that you hadn't spotted or if the dog had some growths that they're not getting large quickly. Because if that's the case, you would certainly want to bring them into the vet. This girl actually had just 7 months ago quite major surgery. She had 2 very large growths on her. One over here and one over here. As it turns out, she had osteosarcoma in her mammary glands, so she had major surgery. She's doing very, very well. It's important especially with a situation like that, that you go over your dog regularly. By regular brushing you can notice if there's any new skin tabs that have come up or if there's a new tumor or lump coming up. You can keep an eye on it and see how fast it's growing. You're also removing the dead hair. As you can see, I'm getting a lot of hair out her. I'm removing the dead hair from her. It's going to make her more comfortable, more clean in the house, and just give her a general overall more healthy coat. Again, a geriatric dog might be a less comfortable. They might not have the tolerance of lying down for as long. You might need to change the kind of brush you are using. Maybe you want to get a softer brush. This in fact is a brush for humans, but it works quite nicely on this dog. Of course, this is a short-coated dog. She does shed a lot so keeping that coat coming out is going to be important. "