Thanksgiving lands on November 26 this year, and for a lot of dogs that means the same trip: a few hours in the back seat, several days in a house that isn't theirs, a few hours home. Grooming before a road trip comes down to two questions. When do you book the appointment, and what happens to the coat between the day you leave and the day you pull back into the driveway?
The first one is easy. The second is where trips go sideways, because a coat on the road isn't living the life it lives at home. It's lying on one side for hours, sleeping on somebody else's rug, getting toweled off in a strange mudroom, and going days without the brush that lives in your kitchen drawer.
When to book: a few days to a week before you leave
Close enough that the dog gets in the car clean and tidy. Far enough that nothing about the groom is still happening when you load up. What that means depends on the coat.
- Double coats — Goldens, shepherd mixes, Huskies, Aussies. Go toward the early end of the window. You want the shedding from the de-shed to happen in your own living room, where the vacuum is, and not ground into the seat fabric of a car you're about to drive four hundred miles.
- Curly and wavy coats — doodles, poodles, poodle mixes. The middle of the window is fine. What matters more is that the dog leaves free of tangles, since the trip itself is going to give the coat plenty of chances to start new ones.
- Long drop coats — Shih Tzu, Maltese, Yorkie, Havanese. Closer to departure works well. The feet, the face and the back end are the parts worth tidying, because those are what pick up the trip: wet grass at a rest stop, a water bowl that isn't shaped like the one at home, and whatever happens on the way to the bathroom spot. Our post on the sanitary trim lays out the options for that last one.
- Short smooth coats — Labs, Beagles, Frenchies, Boxers. Book whenever it fits. A bath, nails and ears, and a good brush to pull the loose hair before it ends up in the car.
Nails are worth getting done whatever the coat. A long weekend at Grandma's often means hardwood or tile your dog doesn't usually walk on, and a dog scrambling for grip on a slick kitchen floor is not a relaxing houseguest.
What hours in the car do to a coat
A riding dog picks a position and stays in it. Curled against the crate wall, flat on the back seat, wedged against the door. Whichever side is down gets pressed warm and flat for an hour or three at a time, and on a coat with any length to it, that's the side that starts to felt. You'll find it when you get there: one shoulder and hip that look fine and feel like a thick mat underneath.
It doesn't take much to head it off. At each stop, after the dog's done their business, run your fingers into the coat on the side they were lying on and fluff it back up against the grain. Ten seconds. If they switch sides on the next leg, check the other one next time.
A harness clipped to a seat belt adds a second pressure point. The straps sit in the same place for the whole drive, and hours of that is a lot more than a walk around the block. We mapped where strap mats form and how to find them in does a harness mat your dog's coat. On a long trip, take the harness off when you're parked for the night instead of leaving it on until morning.
Restraint itself isn't optional, though. The American Kennel Club says a riding dog belongs in a crate or a crash-tested dog seat belt, and that dogs shouldn't ride with their head out the window at all — debris at highway speed can injure their eyes. (Long ear and face hair whipping around in the wind doesn't do the coat any favors either, but that's the minor reason.)
Pack a small coat kit
The AKC's guide to traveling with your dog covers food, water, medications and bathroom supplies, and recommends stopping frequently for exercise and potty breaks. Grooming isn't on that list. We'd add a few things, and they all fit in a gallon bag:
- A metal comb. The one tool that tells you whether a coat is tangled down at the skin. If it slides through, you're fine.
- The brush you use at home, whatever it is. Not a new one bought for the trip.
- A detangling or leave-in spray. Combing a bone-dry coat pulls and snaps hair, and a couple of spritzes lets the comb glide instead.
- Two old towels. One lives on the seat. One is for the dog after a wet rest stop or a muddy yard.
- Paw wipes or a water bottle for rinsing feet before they get back in the car.
- A lint roller, for your host's couch. They'll notice.
At the other end: skip the full bath
Somebody else's backyard is a whole new collection of things to roll in. Wet leaves, a muddy patch by the fence, and in Missouri in late fall, burrs and stick-tights clinging to every leg and ear that brushes past the brush pile. Pull those out the same day, before they work their way in and take tangled hair with them. Our post on getting burrs out of a dog's coat walks through how.
The tempting fix for a dirty dog in a strange house is a bath in the guest tub. For a short coat that's no problem. For a curly or long coat, a full wash without a proper dryer behind it usually makes things worse: the coat dries lying down, packed against itself, and wherever it was already starting to tangle sets up tight. Spot-cleaning gets you most of the way there. Rinse the dirty parts — usually legs and belly — squeeze out what you can with a towel, then borrow a hair dryer, set it to cool, keep it moving, and comb as the hair dries so it sets lifted instead of flat.
Then give the coat five minutes each evening. Comb behind the ears, under the front legs, around the collar, and down whichever side the dog rode on. That's where trouble starts, and five minutes a night is a lot less work than the alternative at the end of the trip.
When you get home
Do one full comb-through within a day or two of getting back. If the comb catches somewhere you can't work loose with a little spray and patience, don't wait for the next scheduled appointment to deal with it — tangles left alone keep tightening. If it's past what you can comfortably handle, we'll look at it with you and talk through the options before anything gets cut.
If you've got a holiday drive coming up, book a groom with us for the few days before you leave, and mention the trip when you do. A dog who's about to spend the holiday on the road and at someone else's house is a useful thing for us to know going in.