| Since your Hidden Meadow Golden Retriever will have a medium length coat, trips to the groomer should not be necessary as long as basic grooming has been done at home. With the English Golden Retriever coat you should only need two basic types of brushes to groom your dog. First a basic hair brush like you can find at any store. This does not have to specifically be a dog grooming brush just a regular old hair brush is fine. The second is a slicker brush. This will help you to get out any dead hair once you have combed through your dogs coat with the hair brush. Get your puppy used to being groomed young, and you will never have a problem with grooming time. You will only need to set aside 5-10 minutes a week to groom your Golden unless he or she has gotten adventurous in the mud! Bathing We get quite a few questions from new puppy parents asking us about how often and what to use when bathing a new puppy. At first, when your pup is young, you can expect to have bath time every week or so since they will have a knack for finding every mud puddle and stinky thing within a 10 mile radius. During this time, we strongly recommend using a shampoo that is detergent and soap free like the Jeffers Brand line at Jeffers.com or the Therapet line at Dog.com Once your pup is a little older you can use the pictures below to help you determine if bath time is necessary. On the left is Layla and on the right is Prudence after having fun in the mud! Nail Care: In the beginning, you will need to trim your Goldens nails about every 7-10 days. Once your dog is a little older you can trim nails about every three weeks until they are grown and then you can trim nails once a month when you brush your dogs teeth. Personally we trim our parents nails every other week as we have wood floors and don’t walk the dogs on concrete. If you will be taking your dog for walks on the sidewalk or concrete, you will find that this will file your dogs nails making nail trims almost unnecessary. For adult dogs we recommend regular scissor style clippers and a nail file. You will want to be careful when trimming your puppies nails so as not to cut the quick, but even being careful, accidents sometimes do happen. We always keep a bottle of Kwik Stop handy to stop the bleeding quickly. Training: Puppy training classes are an invaluable tool that we highly recommend. You can find puppy classes at Petsmart and other stores as well as find trainers who will come to your home. If you opt not to hire a trainer or attend puppy classes, you can certainly train your puppy to have beautiful manners by yourself, the key is to be consistent. |
