Dog grooming as a weekly health check: what your hands find first

Quick answer

Grooming is the only time most owners touch every part of the dog. Used well, it is the cheapest early-detection tool there is.

The value of home grooming is not the coat. It is that your hands pass over every square centimetre of the dog on a schedule, which is how lumps, ear disease, dental pain, joint heat and skin problems get caught while they are small.

Run it as a fixed head-to-tail order rather than a general brush. The order matters, because it is what stops you skipping the armpits, the groin and the mammary chain, which is where the findings that change outcomes usually are.

• Work to the skin, not over the top of the coat. Mats and parasites live at the base.
• Record any lump the day you find it: where, how big, whether it moves, and the date.
• Tear staining itself is cosmetic. Squinting, cloudiness, redness or a coloured discharge is not.
• A dog that flinches, turns its head or goes still when you touch a specific area is telling you it hurts there.
• Weekly is the useful interval. Monthly is often too long to notice change.

Decide in 60 seconds

Set the session up so it is worth doing

A brush moves the coat. A metal comb is the diagnostic tool, because it stops where a mat starts.

Good light and a non-slip surface do more for the quality of a check than any tool. Small dogs on a table with a mat, large dogs on the floor with you sitting rather than looming.

Match the tools to the coat.

Double coats, such as retrievers, huskies and German shepherds, need an undercoat rake and a slicker, and they need brushing to the skin. Surface brushing on a double coat leaves a dense mat layer against the skin that the owner cannot see.

Curly and continuously growing coats, such as poodles and their crosses, mat fastest, particularly at friction points: behind the ears, in the armpits, on the inner thighs and under the collar.

Wire coats need stripping or clipping decisions rather than daily brushing, and clipping a wire coat changes its texture permanently.

Short smooth coats need less brushing but the same skin check, and their owners are the ones most likely to skip it.

Skin folds, in pugs, bulldogs, shar pei and similar, need the fold opened, wiped and dried at every session. A damp fold is where fold dermatitis starts, and it smells before it looks inflamed.

Keep sessions short and end them before the dog has had enough. A dog that learns grooming predicts restraint will make every future check harder, including the ones a vet needs to do.

The head-to-tail order

Eyes.

Look at both eyes from the front, then in profile. Normal is clear, with a small amount of clear or slightly grey discharge in the inner corner that wipes away.

Tear staining is the reddish-brown streak below the inner corner in light-coloured dogs. The colour comes from porphyrins, pigments excreted in tears, which oxidise darker on exposure to light. The stain itself is harmless. What matters is why tears are running down the face instead of draining.

The drainage system is a small duct at the inner corner of each eye that carries tears into the nose. Overflow happens either because too many tears are being made, or because they cannot drain.

Too many tears means something is irritating the eye: a hair touching the cornea from an inward-rolling lid, an extra eyelash growing through the lid margin, an allergy, a foreign body, or a scratch on the cornea.

Poor drainage is common in flat-faced breeds, where the shallow orbit and the tight inner corner mean the duct opening sits badly and the lower lid does not hold tears in place. In those dogs a degree of overflow is anatomical and permanent.

The staining is cosmetic. Manage it by wiping the area daily with a damp cloth and drying it, because the wet fur is what allows yeast and bacteria to grow and turn the stain into a smelly, inflamed fold.

Treat these as medical rather than cosmetic: squinting or holding one eye shut, a blue or cloudy cornea, a red eye, a pupil that looks different from the other, yellow or green discharge, rubbing the face on furniture, or a sudden change in a dog that never stained before.

Ears.

Lift the flap, look, and smell. Odour is the earliest sign and it appears before anything looks wrong.

Lift the flap, look at the visible part of the canal, and smell it. Healthy ears smell of nothing much.

The progression is predictable. Odour comes first, then head shaking and scratching, then visible discharge, then pain when you touch the base of the ear, and finally a canal that feels thickened and narrowed. Dogs seen at the odour stage are treated simply. Dogs seen at the thickened stage may have permanent narrowing.

Discharge colour is a rough guide, not a diagnosis. Dark brown crumbly discharge in a young dog raises the question of ear mites, particularly if another pet is affected. Yellow, creamy or green discharge suggests bacterial infection. Waxy, greasy, sweet-smelling discharge often accompanies yeast, which is very often secondary to allergic skin disease.

That last point is the one owners miss: recurrent ear infections are usually a symptom of underlying allergy, not a hygiene failure. Cleaning harder does not stop them recurring.

Drop-eared, hairy-canalled and swimming breeds get more ear disease because the canal stays warm and humid. Cocker spaniels, poodles and retrievers are worth checking more often than weekly in summer.

Mouth.

Lift the lip on both sides and look at the back teeth, where disease starts, rather than the canines at the front, which look fine long after the molars do not.

Note tartar, red gum margins, a receding gum line, a fractured tooth with a dark centre, and any facial swelling below the eye, which is the classic site for an abscessed upper carnassial tooth.

Bad breath is not a normal dog feature. It is bacterial, and it means periodontal disease is under way.

Head and neck.

Run your hands over the skull and jaw for symmetry, then feel under the jaw for the lymph nodes on each side. They should be small and about the same size as each other. Nodes that are enlarged on both sides are a same-week veterinary question.

Coat and skin.

Part the coat in several places rather than brushing over it: over the rump, along the flanks, on the belly and inside the thighs.

Look for scale, greasiness, redness, black specks that turn red on a damp tissue, which is flea dirt, thinning over the flanks, and any area the dog reacts to.

Sniff the coat. A yeasty or musty smell means skin disease, even when the skin looks acceptable.

Lumps.

Work with flat fingers, moving in overlapping strips, then repeat with the other hand so you cover from a different direction.

For each lump, record four things: the location, described precisely enough that someone else could find it, the size, the consistency, and whether it is free-moving under the skin or fixed to the tissue beneath. Photograph it next to a coin or a ruler.

Those four facts are exactly what a vet needs to decide urgency, and they turn a vague appointment into a productive one.

Armpits, groin, mammary chain and genitals.

Thin, sparsely haired skin makes these the easiest places to see rashes, and the hardest to remember to look at.

In female dogs, run a hand down each mammary chain from the front legs to the groin. Mammary masses are common in unspayed and late-spayed bitches, and they are usually found by an owner rather than at a routine appointment.

In male dogs, check the prepuce for discharge and the scrotum for asymmetry or swelling.

Tail base and rear end.

The tail base is the flea hotspot. Check for scurf, thinning and dampness around the anus, and note any scooting, which is more often anal sac related than worms.

Legs, joints and muscle.

Feel down each limb, compare left with right, and note any joint that feels warmer or thicker than its opposite number.

Muscle symmetry is a sensitive early indicator. Cup one hand around each thigh and compare. A dog that has been quietly favouring one hind leg for months has less muscle on that side, and owners feel this long before they notice a limp.

Feet.

Spread the toes and look between them for redness, swelling and grass seeds. Check the pads for cracks, wear and foreign material, and check the nails, including the dewclaws, which curl into the pad if forgotten.

Weight and body condition.

Feel the ribs with flat hands. You should feel them easily under a thin layer of cover, with a visible waist from above and a tuck-up from the side. Do this every session, because gradual weight change is invisible day to day.

Changes that mean act today

A lump that is growing measurably week to week, that is fixed to underlying tissue, that has ulcerated, or that swells and reddens when handled.

An ear that is painful to touch, or a dog holding its head tilted to one side, which points at the middle or inner ear rather than the canal.

A squinting, cloudy or red eye, or any sudden change in the appearance of one eye compared with the other.

Sudden reluctance to be groomed in a dog that has always accepted it. That is a pain signal more often than a mood.

Weight loss you can feel over a few weeks, particularly with a normal or increased appetite.

The routine that catches problems early

Ending before the dog has had enough is what keeps the next check easy.

What never to do

Do not cut mats out with scissors. Matted skin tents up into the mat, so the skin is often directly under the blade, and this is one of the most common causes of home grooming injuries.

Do not put cotton buds into the ear canal. They push debris down and can damage the eardrum.

Do not use human eye drops, contact lens solution or antiseptics in a dog's eye. If the surface is ulcerated, some human products make it dramatically worse.

Do not buy tear stain supplements without reading what is in them. Some products sold for tear staining have been found to contain antibiotics, which are not appropriate as a long-term cosmetic treatment and can cause resistance and gut disease.

Do not shave a double coat to keep the dog cool. The undercoat insulates against heat as well as cold, and regrowth after shaving is often patchy and permanently different in texture.

Do not squeeze, drain or hot-compress a lump. If it is a mast cell tumour, handling it releases the contents of the cells into surrounding tissue and makes things worse.

Do not brush a dry, matted coat hard with a slicker. It abrades the skin, which is painful and looks like a rash the next day.

When to get help

Book a same-day appointment for a painful ear, a squinting or cloudy eye, a swelling under the eye, or any sudden pain response to being touched.

Book within the week for a new lump of any size, a lump that has changed, recurrent ear infections, bad breath, scooting, or muscle loss on one side.

Bring the record. A vet can act far faster with a dated photograph beside a ruler, a note of when you first felt it, and an accurate description of where it sits than with a description of a lump somewhere on the back.

If your dog will not tolerate a physical examination at home, say so at the appointment. It changes how the team approaches the dog and often means a calmer, safer visit for everyone.