I bought a Furminator after much reading of reviews etc and was really impressed with how much hair it removed from our lab (21 months.) But a dog trainer has just told me that it is actually cutting his hair and over time his coat could change quite dramatically and not necessarily for the good. So now I'm looking for recommendations for other tools. I've heard the Kong Zoom Groom is good but would love some advice/tips on what others use before buying another one. Thanks!
We use a curry comb. It works way better than the Furminator, and it’s not as expensive, either. Though, for the record, I used Furminators for years on my old Lab, and his coat never thinned out as your trainer suggested it would.
Thanks, that's good to know. It's interesting about the Furminator because in all the reviews I read no one said that it actually cut hair and no one said their dog's coat had suffered. Maybe it depends on the type of coat/dog. I think I'll try a curry comb though, thanks.
A Zoom and Groom pulls guard hair and some undercoat. The Furminator mostly pulls under coat. Unfortunately for us, Cooper does not like being brushed, but will tolerate the Zoom n Groom (a rubber brush with large soft rubber teeth)
Loki hates being groomed. I don't find the Kong zoom groom very good and it tends to get used as a chew toy while I stroke him with those black grooming gloves. He can tolerate this for a good few minutes at a time now and it's surprising how much undercoat they remove. There's no way he'd allow me to furminate him but I've never heard of them damaging coat.
Thank you - I think I'm going to try a Zoom n Groom, if that's the Kong one. Love the name Cooper by the way. We nearly called our fox red lab Cooper but went with Wilson in the end
Thanks Ruth. I guess it's a case of experimenting and seeing what is most comfortable for the dog and then how effective it is at removing hair. I do have a pair of gloves with rubbery 'pimples' on them but didn't think they got very much out. Perhaps I should stick with them a bit longer but I may give the Kong groom a go ...
I've just bought a pet teezer brush which seems to be more effective than the zoom groom but I can only use it briefly (until the peanut butter smeared bento ball runs out,) it seems pretty gentle but Loki just takes a while to accept new things and it's bright yellow so there's no hiding it.
Sounds like another possibility. We're quite lucky in that Wilson doesn't seem to mind being groomed although it's quite hard to keep him in one place! Something smeared in peanut butter sounds a good idea!
The best thing is to groom them outside in front of a fan. A Furminator works great there. It worked well with Tilly and Ginger, but Cooper will not even go out on the deck if she thinks we have the fan running for her. Our Sammy owning friends also use one of the high powered blowers, to blow the coat away, but again Cooper thinks it is the work of the Devil.
Cooper sounds a real character! The idea of a fan running while grooming made me smile. Not sure what Wilson would make of that haha.
