Fluffy Cardigan Corgi Grooming

My beautiful Solo (formally Indium's Element of Surprise) has a thick undercoat that gets wooly quickly, with a soft and shiny topcoat that gleams in the sun. He's such a handsome dog. We anticipated that grooming would be a handful.

But honestly, with the right tools, it hasn't been bad at all. He enjoys being groomed, and cooperates fairly well. It took me a while to get the right tools, but with them, it's a breeze.

The key is a greyhound comb. Isabel has groomed our dogs ever since we moved to Salem. While no one's a show dog, there's a deeply satisfying magic to taking three dirty dogs to the groomer, coming home and doing a super clean on the house, and then picking them up and upon return, living like civilized people. For at least a few days.

She helped me chose the right tools. When she first showed me a greyhound comb, I thought she was joking. "That'll never go through his fur!" I explained.

"It should," she said, with just the right amount of gentle shaming. I had been brushing him with a slicker style brush. She told me it doesn't get deep enough, and just glides over the wooly stuff underneath, resulting in... well, a really wooly undercoat.

This scary looking thing is a Greyhound comb.

His baby fine fur on his head behind the ears can start to tangle after just a few days. I added Show Shine Argan Oil Gel to the toolkit. Put a few drops on any tangle and it's out in seconds. Afterwards I spread a little bit in my hands and just run my hands over his coat (laughing, as I do the same with another argan oil product on my own hair in the morning).

Start with a slicker to get things going in the right direction. Next go over with the greyhound comb. Treat treat treat along the way.

Then, of course, I just must groom Jackson in a similar fashion. Problem is, the boy has almost no  coat at all, so it's really just a play of passing the tools over his back a few times with lavish praise and compliments, a few treats, and then we're done and everyone is happy.

One of my goals for 2016 was to do better with battling the never ending challenge of dog hair. So far , doing better.