When you consider the benefits of pet grooming, you may picture your pet with a clean, soft, trimmed coat and short, neat nails. It’s certainly true that the aesthetic benefits of pet grooming are one of the key reasons why so many pet owners take their pets in for regular grooming. However, pet grooming plays an important part in your pet’s overall health and wellbeing, which moves it well beyond the aesthetic benefits.

Using Grooming to Protect and Improve Health

If you don’t feel well, even if you’re only bothered by a minor discomfort, you may still be able to get the exact help you need from your doctor by describing your symptoms. They can use the information you provide to perform a physical examination and order any diagnostic tests that will help to further determine what is occurring.

Your pet has no such easy avenue for communicating their discomfort, simply because they don’t communicate a language that we can easily understand. What makes it even more difficult is that many pets are absolute experts at hiding their discomfort–even from their owners. We therefore rely heavily upon objective symptoms–those symptoms that we can easily determine from their physical condition and appearance. This is where regular grooming can come in handy.

Grooming helps to remove dead skin cells and excess hair from a pet’s coat, which can make it easier to see their skin. This means that any health issues or conditions that your pet may be suffering from can be detected early on, and diagnosed and treated more quickly and easily.

In addition to the health benefits achieved through regular pet grooming, there are also the socialization benefits that can be achieved. Puppies or kittens who experience regular grooming become acclimated to the grooming procedure early on, especially nail trimming and ear cleaning, and are therefore far more willing to sit through it in the future.

Some of the most important benefits of grooming can be achieved through bathing and brushing your pet on a regular basis, but many pet owners find they lack the time, patience or skills necessary to accomplish this. It’s far easier, and more efficient, to allow a professional groomer to take care of your pet’s grooming needs.

The Aspects of Grooming

The different aspects of pet grooming and their benefits include:

• Brushing. This helps to remove dirt, debris, dandruff and dead hairs from your pet. This can help to reduce the amount of hairballs cats and kittens ingest, but more importantly it can help to prevent tangling and matting. Hair tangles and mats not only cause pain, they can create skin irritation and infection or even hide existing skin issues. Brushing is also an important way to stimulate the production of natural oils that help to keep a pet’s coat healthy and shiny. While brushing a pet’s coat, the individual can look for ticks, fleas, bald patches, dry patches, swellings, abnormalities and other issues and alert the owners, so the pet can see their veterinarian.
• Ear cleaning. Many pets suffer from ear infections and parasites. Fortunately, if ears are regularly cleaned and checked, it can be easy to spot an infection so that it can be addressed. Healthy ears are clean and free from odor, redness or swelling.
• Eye hair trimming. It is very important to keep a pet’s hair away from their eyes, as this hair can cause eye irritation and pain, or even infection.
• Teeth cleaning. Just as oral health care is vital for humans, so too is it vital for pets. Some pet groomers will brush your pet’s teeth and check for signs of dental problems.
• Bathing. Regular baths are an important part of keeping your pet clean and germ free.
• Nail trimming. Long nails can not only wreak havoc on your floors at home, they can actually cause your pet great discomfort or pain (especially since they can alter the way your pet is able to place his feet down and walk) and may even lead to injury if they get caught in carpets or rugs. With regular trimming, your pet’s nails will remain healthy and pain-free.

For more information about the benefits of pet grooming or to schedule your pet’s grooming appointment, contact us today.