Nando is giving me a whole litter's worth of fur at the minute! He is moulting/blowing his coat like mad because of the warmer weather. I have a 'shedding blade' which is effective but I feel like I need to get into his undercoat as those are the bits that are blowing. He looks an absolute mess and more to the point the house and all my clothes are covered in hair!

What is the best brush to help get a lot of coat out? I'm not keen on the furminator.

He is a short coat GSD but he has a lot of 'fluff' on his rump and thighs.

The Furminator is definitely your best bet, why don't you like it? I couldn't live without mine and I'd imagine a GSD coat is ideal for it just like Malinois coats are. Think I've tried everything there is and nothing else comes close. One trick though is stick him in the bath, wet him and shampoo him and groom him with a rake style comb whilst still soaking wet in the bath -you will get LOADS out and once he's dry he will moult ten times more which means it will come out much quicker and not last as long.

Personally I just use a fairly narrow toothed comb and part the coat as I go, it collects the undercoat and doesn't damage the top coat.

Undercoat rake, or perhaps just a wide tooth comb, it's amazing how much coat fluff I got from the corgi I groomed last weekend. Also bath and / or blowdry helps to blow out lots of the dead coat. It looked like a cotton wool explosion all over my grooming room!!

I've read that the furminator cuts the coat? There is an outdoor self-service doggy wash not far from me and I think I would rather pay a few quid to use that than have to clean my own bath of Nando hairs!

I've used the Furminator for years, almost always before shows, and done pretty well at the shows, certainly never, ever seen the coat cut. Not when it's used on a double coat as it is meant for. :)

I find with the Elkhounds a moulting comb (one that has alternating shorter and longer teeth close together) gets the short loose undercoat out well, especially on legs. 

Then a long toothed metal comb with finer teeth one side and wide the other, followed by a brush of loose hairs with a softish slicker.

A bath will loosen the coat thereby getting it out quicker, and of course the damp hair doesn't fly as much.

If you can afford it why not have him professionally groomed? A groomer should use a very strong blaster dryer on his coat after a bath and it will remove huge amounts fo loose hair.

I rather stupidly forgot to book an appointment with my preferred groomer who is booked up for the next two or three weeks so I'm going to have to do something in between then! He is nervous in the groomers and my preferred groomer uses Ttouch and is great with nervous dogs so would not want him to go anywhere else!

I'm having a hard time with hair at the moment too - I think last year's wet cool summer is to blame. My double coated dogs seem to have stocked up on extra undercoat against the rain, rather than losing it as they usually would, and now I'm seeing moults like never before!

My Malinois is the worst - if you stare at her long enough you can see the tufts working their way out. At least the fluff gets caught up in the top coat of my longhaired dog, but that just means a lot of grooming later on, especially as bathing a coated dog results in mats. I asked a groomer friend and she said shorthaired double coated dogs DO benefit from a bath to loosen the coat, and of course wet fluff is far easier to deal with than dry fluff which gets everywhere.

On the plus side, the birds in my local area will have extra cosy nests - I've been putting out the Mali fluff which they prefer to the longer hair from my other dog, and have been rewarded by seeing bluetits, great tits and sparrows carting it off in beakloads.

PS: If you don't like the Furminator, then you can't beat a double row undercoat rake. Does a very good job, and unlike the Furminator, works well on long coats.

My tool of choice for moulting double coats in the absence of a blaster is a rake like this.
http://www.petcetera.co.uk/64021-perth-rake-12cm-5-original-coarse-gsd-s.html
someone did kindly explain to me how to turn a word into a link but I have forgotten :(

Bath, dryer (even a human hand held dryer is better than nothing) and a wide toothed comb.

Your professional groomer with have more powerful equipment but bath and dryer is the quickest way to remove most of the dead undercoat.

I use an undercoat rake on my GSD.  That and a slicker brush.  Take him to the dog wash or a walk near water.  I think it brings the coat out quicker if you wash them.  You should've got a longcoat!! At least when they cast, you need to brush the hair out, it's not flying everywhere!lol

I used a rake type of brush on my retrievers which worked well. It has a rubbery type of plastic teeth rather then metal, which seemed to grip the hairs better. Rubber brushes work well on carpets to get those woven in retriever hairs out that even the dyson can't suck up.
One of my retrievers had a particularly dense undercoat which got worse as she aged. In the end I would send her to a groomers to get the worst out, poor groomer used to emerge from the grooming room covered from head to toe in retriever fluff.

I am not keen on the furminator Josh but love my rake with rolling prongs if that makes sense. Rubber handle and cheap

> You should've got a longcoat!! At least when they cast, you need to brush the hair out, it's not flying everywhere!

Now that is something I am slowly realising for myself....lol
I don't think there is enough information or education out there for people choosing breeds.

I was anti-having a long coated breed because I thought it would be hair central. It's a reasonable assumption... no?
What I got was some hair on the carpets easy to clean up. Grooming got it out. All nice and tidy. Still is. A few scratched out tumbleweeds around the place but that's it. And that's 7 years into the partnership.

Now I have also have a shorthaired double coated dog of a related breed to the one above, and I have never seen so much fluff in my entire life. Grooming every day is not enough to stem the tsunami of undercoat which has a life of its own. If you stare at her long enough, you can actually see the tufts working their way out of their own accord.  I have never done so much grooming as I have in the last few weeks, to such little effect, but maybe our weird summer last year is responsible.

Now some people might be happy with taking a dog out for a walk that looks like an old camel, but not me..... plus of course what doesn't get into the comb or brush, will surely find its way onto the carpet.

I might be more inclined towards longhaired dogs in the future....

I groom a cavalier ,for my vet ,who gets a huge buildup of undercoat ...I use a stripping knife like a comb,ie card the coat. Twice  a year  I get a bucket full(literally) of dead hair out of this dog.The owner couldn't believe how much hair this little dog had in excess.
I would think this would work really well in your dogs situation.Lift the coat and card deep into the undercoat. You would line comb through the coat,starting at one end of the body and working back.If the undercoat is too dense,start with a metal greyhound-comb,then go to a finer tooth comb and then even to a flea comb.Its a big job,but you should get a lot of coat out and the dog may well sleep through the groom...mine does .

My rough collie is blowing her coat ......big time!

I use a slicker brush and pin brush and get bagfuls from her.

My house and us are covered in fluff....we even have fluff sandwiches!

Vino is having a major post litter moult at the moment and last night with a wide toothed comb then a close toothed one I remover over a bucketfull of hair....in fact I removed another dog easily !  I just sit her by my side on the floor while watching the TV and go right over her bit by bit. Its hard work and takes a long time, we sat for 2 hrs last night but she lookes better today and she is going to have a bath later (Hav'nt told her yet !) Hopefully after her bath and a blast she will have get most of it out and the new coat will start.
Aileen

We wind a rubber band in and out through the tines of an ordinary comb (whichever one suits your dog), and this seems to work for us!

Jo

I have to say I don't like blasters for moulting purposes. (Actually I don't like them for anything -I am so glad I borrowed one before wasting money as I would not want one even if it was free now, having tried it out on both my breeds and the cats.) A friend of mine once said "Have you noticed how your dogs and mine all have thicker coats after a moult than most others you see in the show ring? Have you also noticed we're the ones NOT using a blaster?"

Different breeds different grooming ways.. I would not be without my blaster, in fact I had my new all singing all dancing one arrive today. If I did not blast mine with thier thick double coats they would take 2 days to dry properly.
Aileen

I've just ordered one of these -
http://m.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/dog_grooming_care/grooming_tools/shedding/275989?previousProductGroupId=3540

and will report back when I get it!

Oooh that looks good, also got GSD and undercoat everywhere and been following this with interest. I usually book him in the groomer for a 'bath and blast' in May and October to get the worst out but as others have said this year seems to be worse than usual.
PLEASE do let us know if its any good :-D

> ....as others have said this year seems to be worse than usual.

I'm sure it is too.
Maybe because of the long wet summer, or '9 month winter' (as some are calling it). I bet they grew extra undercoat because it was so damp and wet.... we tend to think of them growing extra fluff against the cold, but haven't considered they might do the same against the rain, until now!

Thought I had broken the back of my short haired dog's mega-moult last week - nope, she is still tufting and a day without a brush with the rake still leaves her looking like an old camel. I am definitely seeing the value of coated dogs now.

If this gadget does what it says on the tin then I'll be very happy. Seems it's useful for a lot of other things too, and if I can get my longhaired dog anywhere near it (place no bets!) then it could potentially suck out some of the moisture when he's wet. It does appear to have a Furminator style thing attached, but hopefully that is removable. However, given how much fluff furminators generate it does seem a bright idea to have something that sucks it all up straight away!

A blaster is out of my price range at the present moment and I don't think I'd get either dog anywhere near one, regardless.

yep my longcoat gsd is longer than thicker than ever this year. He looks like a yeti ! and so do I when I have finished grooming him

In reply to MsTemeraire

I have one very similar to that one and the comb bit is very much like the furminater. It's still hard work combing out but the hair gets sucked up into the tub so saving hair city in your lounge lol.

That looks like a great device, can't go wrong at that price either! May have to invest!

Nando had a visit to the dog wash yesterday. He made a big fuss but was better behaved than I imagined! (pic: http://twitter.com/parrysite/status/329626348727455744/photo/1)

Using the blower there got so much out and it was a completely different colour to what my brush was getting out, too so I am confident the undercoat has had a big clean up! He is still looking all scruffy on his back end where the white hair is but I think that will settle down with more brushing because at the minute it's just loose from the washing.