If your animal is matted, it's skin is being pulled tighter and tighter. This is painful and very unhealthy for your animal. Mats are the perfect environment for harboring parasites. The skin under the matted areas is usually sore due to lack of air circulation. The biggest mistake I see people make is just brushing the top of the coat, not getting to the undercoat and brushing down to the skin. Never bathe a matted animal. By bathing a matted animal you are creating more problems. When the mats get wet, they will shrink, tighten, and become worse. When I work with matted animals I try to explain to the owners, that neither they, or I, are affected by the matting, but that it's the dog or cat who is the one who has to suffer from the sore skin and pulling. The best way to prevent matting is to regularly brush and comb your animals and schedule regular grooming sessions. A good rule of thumb to follow on brushing is to have several good quality brushes and a comb. Use your comb to check your brush work. If the comb catches, this means that you haven't completely brushed out the coat enough. Heavy coated and animals with long hair take a lot of commitment to care for. Don't wait until the groomer comes, make sure you can set up time to spend with your animal to work on some brushing. This is a wonderful way to share some special bonding time with your very special friend and companion. Your animal will soon come to look forward to this special time with you.

For animals who are severely matted, the only humane way to take care of this is to shave down the animal. It is very painful to demat an animal in this condition. Shaving the coat off and starting over is the only solution. Shaving can be very dangerous to your animal because it is very difficult to see what is really under all that matted or felted coat until we get the coat off. There is always a risk of injuring any animal who has been kept in this condition. The best way to deal with a severely matted coat is to keep it from getting that way in the first place. This is the animal owner's responsibility to regularly and properly brush their animals as well as set up regular grooming appointments.

Remember, you are responsible for the care of your animals. There are no excuses when it comes to caring for you animals. If you don't have the time to properly care for your animals, then you need to rethink if it's the right thing for you to even have this type of animal in your family. I've heard too many excuses from people on not having the time. Make the time! Your animals depend on you for their care! There's no reason any animal should end up being severely matted! There's No Excuses!