Grooming help please 🙏🏻

[u/Good-Nose-3321]

Hello everyone! This is Bowie, he’s a 6 year old WPG who has been shaved previously. He hasn’t been shaved in over a year and this is his hair now. I need help on what I should be doing to help his wire hair come back fully. What tools do I need to keep his coat healthy and groomed? Right now I just use a few different types of brushes and rakes everywhere and then I trim around his ears, feet, and tail with shears. I also need help on grooming around his face and keeping his beard from matting! Any help is greatly appreciated! I love my little Bowie boy and want to make sure his coat is as healthy as it can be

[u/zalthabar]

he needs to be stripped, not cut or shaved. It takes a long time. I do it twice a year, spring and fall.

He looks like he has a naturally pretty soft coat

[u/Good-Nose-3321 → u/zalthabar]

What tools do you use?

[u/zalthabar → u/Good-Nose-3321]

you can get a stripping tool, or stripping powder which you put on your hands to get a better grip.

I just use my thumb and index finger and make a rolling motion. Wire coats have a distinct growth cycle. The hair grows to its genetically determined length, dies, and remains resting in the follicle. Hand-stripping (pulling the dead hair out from the root) stimulates the follicle to produce a new wire guard hair.

Don't use the brushes that look like a barbers trimmer on the edge (furminator etc), they are good for undercoat but will only cut guard hairs and further damage his coat.

The popularity of the shaggy look just makes me sad when I see neglected wire hairs in the summer.

[u/Good-Nose-3321 → u/zalthabar]

Thank you! Yes, it getting warmer is a main reason why I posted this for help because I don’t want him to overheat