Brushing
Brushing comes first, before anything on this page. Most coats want ten minutes, two to three times a week. Double coats want it daily in shedding season. Smooth coats can live on a weekly once-over.
Use a comb that reaches all the way in. Long coats and double coats, German Shepherds included, need teeth that go down to the undercoat. Surface brushing just polishes the top and flatters everyone involved.
And the one rule that is not negotiable: brush before the bath, always. Water tightens a tangle into a mat.
Bathing
Ours starts hours before the water. Our vet says a coconut oil massage does not do much for a coat. Our humans disagree. So two to three hours before every bath, we get one. We are not complaining.
Use a very mild shampoo. This is ours, made for us.
We also use a leave-in conditioner after baths. We are still perfecting that formula, so it is not on the shelf yet.
Work the lather in with a bath brush so the skin underneath actually gets clean, not just the hair on top. As for how often: every 2 to 6 weeks depending on coat and lifestyle. More than weekly strips the oils that make a coat shine in the first place. The exact rhythm differs dog to dog; the routine at the end of this page gets you yours.
After the bath, no perfumes and no scented sprays. Our nose is the whole point of us, and that is how the itching starts.
Drying
Press with a towel, don’t scrub. Scrub-drying a long coat is a mat factory. If you use a dryer, cool setting, at a distance. We feel the heat more than you do.
Double coats must dry to the skin. A damp undercoat is where trouble starts.
Food that reaches the coat
Shine starts inside. Our vet put us on Vitabest Derm syrup and it has been working: the omega fatty acids keep a coat smooth and shiny. We have 10 ml a day, with dinner.
We earn nothing from these mentions. If that ever changes, this sentence changes first.
Even the floors count
We sit on floors. We nap on floors. So the humans clean them with Beco’s organic floor cleaner; the harsher bottles left our skin itchy and dry. If your dog scratches more after cleaning day, the floor is a fair suspect.