Dog Guidance Blog

Grooming is essential to a healthy cavalier King Charles Spaniel. In addition to looking good, regular grooming keeps your Cavalier clean, healthy at the same time prevents problems caused by fleas, ticks, matted hair, uncleaned teeth, excessive buildup of earwax, dirt and bacteria.

Grooming a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel may not be very difficult given the fact that these little creatures are extremely social and enjoy constant companionship from humans and other dogs alike. However, a supposed exciting process may turn into a disaster if appropriate measures are not taken. In order to make grooming easy at the same time fun for you and your dog, here as some tips you might want to consider:

1. Before the process starts, gather all necessary requirements first. You will be needing different tools to clean the eyes, ears, brush teeth, bathe, dry, trim nails as well as hair. Make sure you have all these things before doing anything else.

2. Before bathing your dog, you need to brush and comb away mats and dead hairs as this become tight and unmanageable when wet. Dogs with long coat, such that of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, require daily brushing to make sure that the coat does not get matted and that foreign objects such as grass and sticks do not become entangled. Comb or brush your pet from top to bottom using the appropriate comb/brush for his coat. Different types of comb are combs with fine teeth, with medium teeth, with coarse teeth and combs with or without handles. There are also brushes with short metal pins, slanted metal pins, with flexible plastic pins, oval-shaped brushes and rectangular brushes.

3. Avoid wetting your pet’s ears, eyes and mouth. Clean your dog’s ears regularly to prevent excessive buildup of earwax. Some dogs, such as the cavaliers have excessive hairs growing on the ear canal. You might want to trim this however breed standards for Cavalier King Charles Spaniel demand that this must be kept long. Ask your vet or groomer about this.

4. Begin shampooing at the neck and move downward. Pay careful attention around the nose, mouth, ears and eyes. After shampoo, rinse your dog thoroughly because shampoo residue will cause hot spots, an irritating spot of bald, itchy, red skin.

As soon as bathing is over, dry your dog as best as you can. If you need to blow dry your dog, choose a good quality dryer to eliminate or minimize the risk of burning your pet.