Double Coats Are So Easy Though
Some owners with double coated dogs genuinely believe their dog doesn't need much grooming. If you've ever groomed an Aussie Shepherd, you'll know exactly how that conversation goes. It's not bad faith, it's just a gap in understanding. One worth closing. Because from the outside, a double coat groom looks like a wash and a blow dry. From the inside, it's one of the most labour-intensive grooms you'll do.
Here's what's happening at every stage.
The bath is doing most of the heavy lifting
With a single coat, the bath is straightforward. With a double coat, the bath is where a significant chunk of the real work happens. Get it wrong here and you'll pay for it in the drying room.
The first challenge is just getting the coat wet. Guard hairs on double coated breeds are designed to repel water. That's literally the point of them. Getting shampoo all the way down to the skin takes time, the right tools, and often a hydrobath to get proper penetration. In Nicole's Rough Collie tutorial, she keeps the hose pressed right down against Amara's body throughout the bath. Not for show, but because running water over the top of that coat achieves almost nothing.
Conditioning is where the deshedding actually begins. Alicia demonstrates this clearly in her Pomeranian tutorial. A good conditioner applied to a double coat allows dead hair to slide out rather than needing to be dragged out later. Skip it and you're brushing harder in the drying room, risking coat breakage, and doing work in the wrong place. Colleen takes this further in her Australian Shepherd tutorial, using a multi-stage deshedding system specifically designed to shift as much dead undercoat as possible before the blow dryer is even switched on. The goal is to save the drying room for drying, not deshedding.
Rinsing is not a quick step either. Any conditioner left in a double coat creates a waxy residue that's hard to dry, produces a poor finish, and can cause skin irritation. You rinse until the water runs completely clear. On a thick-coated dog, that takes longer than most clients would imagine.
The drying room is where you win or lose
If the bath is the foundation, drying is everything built on top of it. On double coats, getting it wrong has real consequences.
Double coated dogs need to be bone dry, all the way down to the skin. Moisture trapped under dense undercoat doesn't evaporate the way it does on a shorter coat. It sits, and that's how bacterial infections start. That's how hot spots happen. Alicia makes this point clearly in her Pomeranian tutorial, and it applies across every double coated breed. When a client asks why drying takes so long, the honest answer is that the alternative is a vet visit.
The blow dryer isn't just removing water either. It's doing mechanical work, separating the coat, lifting dead undercoat to the surface, and making the brush-out that follows possible. Colleen blast-dries first to shift the bulk of the water, then works section by section to get the coat fully separated. By the time she picks up a brush, the coat is already doing what she needs it to do.
Working with heavy shedders also means PPE. Mask, goggles, earmuffs. The amount of hair and dander that goes airborne during a double coat blow-dry is significant, and protecting yourself is part of doing this job properly over the long term.
Static is another factor clients never see. The more you brush during drying, the more static builds, and static attracts the dead undercoat you're trying to remove. A light mist of anti-static spray keeps things manageable and produces a much more controlled, plush finish.
Line brushing: the part that takes as long as it takes
Once the coat is dry, the groom-out begins. If the bath and drying were done well, this stage should confirm that work rather than replace it.
Colleen uses line brushing throughout her Australian Shepherd tutorial. Holding back a section of coat with one hand and working from the skin outward with a pin brush, section by section, across the whole dog. It's methodical and it's slow, and it's the only way to be sure every part of the dog has been brushed all the way to the skin rather than just across the surface.
This is the gap between what groomers do and what most owners do at home. Owners brush the top. The dog looks fine. Underneath, there's compacted undercoat and the beginnings of knots. Regular clients whose dogs arrive in good condition have usually learned to line brush at home, or they're coming in frequently enough that it doesn't build up between appointments.
A comb follows the brush. Always. It catches what the brush misses and confirms the coat is genuinely clear. On a very thick coat, a Samoyed, a Chow, a Bernese, a standard comb won't even get through. A collie comb with wider tine spacing is the right tool, and most clients have never heard of one.
Nicole's approach with Amara is a good example of what a well-maintained coat looks like by this stage. Most of the dead coat has already come out in the bath and drying, so the brush-out is about confirmation and tidy-up rather than starting from scratch. That's the goal every time, and it's only possible if the earlier stages were done properly.
What to tell clients
You don't need to deliver a lecture at the front desk. But having a short, clear explanation ready is useful.
The time it takes comes from every stage: getting shampoo through a coat designed to repel water, conditioning to loosen dead hair before drying begins, drying all the way to the skin to prevent infection, and brushing out every inch of the dog rather than just the surface. None of those stages can be skipped and none of them are quick.
Clients who understand this tend to book regularly, bring their dogs in good condition, and don't question the price. That gap in understanding is worth closing, and it usually only takes one good conversation.
The blog is just the beginning
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