Summer Cut?

Both links are excellent descriptions of why NOT to shave. Couldn't have ever said it better! Thanks for sharing!
 
When we first adopted Cody, we asked our groomer about a summer cut. We did not know any better, we thought he would be cooler. We were shocked when we picked him up. She shaved him! We learned our lesson. We felt so bad for him, it took forever to grow out.
 

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Bitsy Boodle's Summer Cut

CUT, not shave. This is what Bits' summer cut looks like. I will repeat: We do this because Bitsy suffers horribly from the heat. In the dead of winter, she sleeps out in the snow. We started this in 2012 after watching her be totally enervated by the heat for five years. When she gets her summer clip, she's so happy!!! Does it grow out well? Absolutely! By the holidays, she's in full coat -- a total furball!!
 

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Hi Chris - you know your dog best, so if this is working for you I wouldn't change it!

I prefer to keep my shelties with a full coat - and it's nice to know that there's some good justification for that too. My sister in law is always after me about how uncomfortable they must be and that I'm being a bad owner putting looks above how comfortable my dog is. She's had schnauzers and now a bichon mix and she keeps them really short most of the time and shaved in the summer. Honestly I'm not very heat tolerant myself, so in the summer my dog gets out when I do which is generally early morning or evenings, the rest of the time we spend in the shade or air conditioning :smile2: If my dog was suffering I would clip her for sure.
 
I'll re post this information that I put on an earlier thread on the issue

Its really important to remember that dogs do not cool themselves in the same way humans do - that is, their skin has only a marginal role in temperature regulation.

In summer they lose their undercoat and this allows not only a cooling breeze to get through to the skin surface, but it also makes it easier for them to raise their guard hairs to assist air flow. That's why it is far more important to get rid of undercoat than worry about removing guard hairs.

Secondly, a dog's primary mechanism of reducing body temperature and coping with heat is through panting. They take in air through their nose and exhale through their mouth - their noses have extra folds to take in more moisture from the air, and their tongues have a greatly increased blood flow for releasing heat. When they dont want to lose heat they breath only through their noses. You will notice breeds with double coats usually also have long noses - a longer nose gives an increased capacity for regulating temperature with panting.

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My dogs competed in flyball and agility in the Australian heat - that's hot. They coped better than many of the other dogs and that's because I made sure they had the undercoat removed (I used a furminator).

Except for some older dogs (and I have clipped a very old sheltie that had problems with grooming) the shelties I know of that get a summer cut are generally scruffy and unkempt during the year. I don't know whether it's because owners who don't want to groom are more likely to get the coat cut or possibly getting the coat cut results in a scruffier dog. I know when Deska's coat was growing back of the surgery and grooming 'incidents' it was much more likely to knot. I think because it was all growing the same length at the same time.

Btw - it takes 9mths for a sheltie to grow it's coat back, so they won't have their full coat back by winter. I also remember someone posting an article last year about it effecting the fur quality, esp in older dogs.
 
Chris said:
CUT, not shave. This is what Bits' summer cut looks like. I will repeat: We do this because Bitsy suffers horribly from the heat. In the dead of winter, she sleeps out in the snow. We started this in 2012 after watching her be totally enervated by the heat for five years. When she gets her summer clip, she's so happy!!! Does it grow out well? Absolutely! By the holidays, she's in full coat -- a total furball!!
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Chris, Bitsy is one of the reasons I included the disclaimer "under normal circumstances" in my original post. There are always exceptions to every rule. Besides, you don't shave herm you cut her. :wink2:

You know your dogs and you have to do what's best for them.
 
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