Overstripping?

[Sandi16]

The other day we were fishing and while waiting for bites, I decided to get some of the old hairs I missed on Louie. His butt has a very thick and dry undercoat that's getting fluffy. It comes out easily, so I decided to "thin" it abit, and now.. he's patchy. So, now when I see his mangy looking butt I feel guilty, but the hair came right off! Same thing with the hair on his neck and head. If I were to pull all that is easily pulled.. he'd have bald spots!

Also, even though it easily came out, his skin got red. Is that normal?

[Tracy A.]

yes, when i've "gone to town" on an area, the result can be red skin becuase you've just pulled all the top coat of an area. You can do two things.... either do another session and take the rest down to the under coat... or get a comb and a pumice stone and start in section and only pull out the longest hairs... work a section move to next (think of when you get your hair cut and they cut your hair in sections- this is what you want to do when stripping). the end result will be a more thinned out look with less noticeble patches.... which will still be there.... just a little better looking. If it makes you feel any better I do this all the time to my two dogs... Put holes in the top coat with under coat showing through.....LOL

[SparkyJonesMom]

I never can tell if I've gotten carried away with stripping Sparky. I just know when it's over, he looks really skinny and adorable.

I bet ol' Louie doesn't even know he looks mangy. I bet he's still as cute as can be.

[Sandi16]

I've areayd stripped him down to his undercoat.. I'm talking the undercoat comes out easily and we're down to skin in some spots. They're little but noticeable.

[Cairnmania]

I've never had a dog get red skin from stripping - but I regularly end up with a pooch that looks like the victim of a moth attack! I am a lazy ... in decent weather I plop the dog on top of the plastic picnic table and just start working. The result of a squiggling dog and me not combing the hair and look at what I've done are patches ... but what the heck, I just fix the damage as best I can a few days later when I get round to it again.

[Chez]

Interesting post, I'm just having trouble getting the undercoat out that needs to. Angus has very thick undercoat on his back end, I reverse comb going down to a fine tooth comb, I've had to use a deshedding rake twice and he really hated it. He has a scaley tail which the vet says is normal but he has started with a red patch on his hip where his undercoat was really thick. I think that the undercoat has stopped air getting to his skin so I'm going to have to use the deshedding comb more often to get the loose out. I'm also going to try some yumega or quistel to see if that helps.