How do you cope with your dogs shedding?

to be frank, I can just say grin and bear it. hairy dogs are meant to shed fur. the other alternative is to ban them from human areas like within the house. we had to do that as our child is asthmatic

I have 3 dogs and 3 cats, the only solution is to vacuum daily.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t, but I should. Thankfully no one in my home has allergies bad enough that I’m forced to.

Hope you find a solution.

MommyKelly yeah I thought that too for a long time until we finally broke down and got our Lab in November.

Angie is your lab light or dark colored? Ours is black and during our puppy and intermediate dog training classes lots of people said the light labs shed almost continuously. It seemed to be true from what we saw and heard. Luckily Midnight only seems to shed every few months, but this is the longest shed she’s gone through – probably because of the heat of summer (it’s her first summer).

We are learning to cope with the hair and in truth I don’t mind it that much unless I know we are having guests come by (and we get drop ins a lot!) … those hairballs don’t look so good to guests! LOL

What do you use to groom your lab? We use the rubber ezgroom brush and the Furminator. I love the Furminator it really takes out a lot of the undercoat.

Wow Shari, like Nina you’ve got a houseful of pets too. Mud huh? Luckily we don’t have to deal with that too much, although our day at the beach last Sunday ended up bringing a heck of lot of fine sand into the house.

We have enclosed front and back porches so I think that helps keep some of the outdoor mess from getting inside the house – at least if we take a moment to brush off Midnight or ourselves. Snow has been our biggest problem so far other than the shedding.

Midnight is black so we are slowly starting to learn not to wear too much white. She also enjoys being vacuumed – had a session earlier today but she still needs to be brushed. At least it’s summer – we can groom her outside!

Thanks for your visit.

Heh heh – suck it up girl! As a dog owner/lover, I’ve had to learn to go with the flow and accept dog hair in my life even though I thought it was impossible.

A small, lightweight vacuum sounds ideal. I hate dragging my monster out of the closet too, so I just bought a swiffer vacuum – which doesn’t have a great deal of suction but the cloth picks up what’s left – and it’s easy…

Chris – Midnight was very sick when we got her. She looked fine when we picked her up from the breeder but we quickly discovered that she really wasn’t. She was full of round worms, pooping out the shredded pine bedding she was kept on – had a gastro infection and later ended up having both eye and ear infections. It took us about three months to get her in good health and she still gets loose stool almost daily. Sensitive stomach we presume as she is healthy now.

The breeder had been feeding her Purina puppy chow. When I saw how sick she was and read the label on the food (in pet store – - we had been supplied with some free food from the breeder) I chose not to continue her on that food because it was full of food dyes, and chemical additives.

I did a lot of research on dog foods and decided to try her on Blue Buffalo Chicken and Brown Rice for large breed puppies. As a back up (and good thing since both of these companies have had trouble with their ingredient supply lately) we also started her on Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and brown rice formula for large breed puppies.

Both dog foods are full of natural ingredients, whole chicken or lamb, chicken meal or lamb meal, don’t contain fillers like corn and don’t have added chemicals. Both foods also contain Omega 3 fish oils.

We are satisfied that the diet she’s on is a good one for her health and her coat. In fact a few weeks after we started her on these foods there was a dramatic improvement in her coat.

She’s a black lab and people are always commenting on how shiny and healthy her coat looks. Even people seeing photos of her comment on her beautiful coat.

This is only her third shed. She’s 10.5 months old and it’s her first full summer. I don’t think there’s anything unusual about her shed … we’re just having trouble coping with all the hair and extra cleaning involved. I sat outside with her yesterday grooming her and ended up with half a small wastebasket of fur! Hopefully she’s almost done her shed.