More Than Just A Well-Trimmed Coat: 3 Ways That Grooming Keeps Your Dog Healthier
Grooming your dog keeps their appearance looking tidy, leaves them smelling clean and gives you the chance to bond with your pet. However, regular grooming has another important benefit that often goes overlooked by pet owners—it helps to improve your dog's health. Avoiding matted fur keeps air circulating around the skin and can prevent skin conditions from developing, and regular grooming allows you to spot any that do develop as early as possible. To learn more, read on to find out three reasons why regular grooming helps keep your dog healthy.
1. Allows Skin to Breathe, Reducing the Risk of Skin Problems
Brushing your dog on a regular basis helps to remove shed hair and dead skin that has become entangled within other hair, and this helps to prevent mats from forming in the coat. Matted fur can present a health concern for your dog, as it will trap moisture and bacteria against your dog's skin, which makes skin infections more likely to develop.
A matted coat is also annoying and uncomfortable for your dog, which can make them more likely to bite and scratch at affected areas in order to remove the matted fur—this can scratch the skin and introduce bacteria to the wound, which can also contribute to skin infections. Regular brushing and grooming keep your dog's skin healthier by reducing the likelihood of mats occurring.
2. Lets You Spot Potential Skin Conditions Early and Begin Treatment
Grooming your dog regularly, whether you do it yourself or have it performed by a professional pet grooming service, gives you the chance to regularly examine them for unusual discolorations, sores, and lumps. Keeping your dog's fur short through regular grooming will aid in this process, as well.
Dogs can suffer from a number of skin conditions, including serious ones such as skin cancer. Being able to spot unusual areas on your dog's skin early means that you can take them to the veterinarian as soon as possible after the issue occurs, which allows you to begin treatment early. This prevents skin conditions from potentially developing into more serious problems.
3. Keeps Bones Healthy With Regular Nail Trimming
Nail trimming is a pet grooming task that most owners hate to do—they have blood vessels and soft tissue close to the base of the nail, so trimming them too short can lead to pain and bleeding. However, keeping your dog's nails short is important for their health.
When a dog's nails are too long, more of their weight is shifted towards the back of the foot instead of the front. This causes a change in the way that a dog walks, which can lead to issues with bone development and even cause arthritis. Long, sharp nails are also more likely to become stuck in fabric, and dogs can fracture their nails while trying to free it.
As you can see, dog grooming offers a number of health benefits for your pet that aren't just cosmetic. If you don't have time to groom your dog yourself or don't feel comfortable trimming your dog's nails, make sure they're still getting the health benefits of regular grooming by taking them to a professional pet grooming service like Elizabethton Veterinary Clinic.