How to Dry a Thick-Coated Dog After a Bath

On a thick or double coat, drying is the harder half of the bath and the part that decides whether the bath helped. The outer coat can feel dry within an hour while the undercoat against the skin is still wet, and damp skin under a warm coat is exactly the environment that hot spots, yeast and that unmistakable wet-dog smell need.

Why thick coats hold water

A double coat is two coats: a coarse outer layer of guard hairs and a dense, woolly undercoat underneath. The guard hairs shed water reasonably well. The undercoat behaves like a sponge, and it is packed tightly enough that air barely moves through it. Push your fingers into the coat at the hip of a Husky an hour after a bath and it will still be wet down there.

Curly and wool coats hold water for a different reason — the hair itself is absorbent and the curl traps it — but the drying problem looks the same.

The four-stage method

1. Squeeze, do not rub. Before any towel touches the dog, run your hands down each leg, along the body and down the tail, squeezing water out. You can remove a surprising amount this way, and squeezing does not tangle the coat the way rubbing does.

2. Towel by pressing. Lay a towel over a section, press it into the coat, lift, move on. Two or three towels for a big double coat is normal. Rubbing is what turns a clean curly coat into a matted one, so keep the motion straight and in the direction the hair grows.

3. Move air through it while you brush. This is the stage most home baths skip, and it is the one that works. Set a dryer on cool or low, aim it at one section, and part the coat with a rake or slicker so the air reaches the skin. Work section by section from the back forward. The brush is not optional here — brushing while the coat dries is what stops the undercoat setting into a felted layer, and on a shedding coat it is the single most productive brushing you will do all month.

4. Check the slow spots by hand. Before you call it done, feel the chest, the armpits, the groin, the trousers on the back legs, behind the ears and the base of the tail. Those stay wet longest on almost every dog.

What to expect, by coat

Heat is the thing to be careful with

Dogs shed heat by panting, not through their skin, and a thick coat is insulation working in both directions. A hot dryer held in one place can burn skin you cannot see under two inches of coat, and the dog may not react until the damage is done. Keep the dryer cool or on its lowest heat, keep it moving, keep it a hand's width or more from the skin, and stop if the dog starts panting hard.

Never use a crate dryer, a heat lamp, or a hair dryer left propped up and unattended. Every one of those has a track record of injuring dogs.

The winter problem

A damp dog in cold weather loses heat fast, and small or thin dogs lose it faster. In winter, do not let a thick-coated dog outside until the coat is dry to the skin, and time baths for the morning so there is a full day to dry. If your dog also comes home wet and salty from walks, the paw and pad routine for winter covers the other half of that problem.

When drying gets easier

The whole job shrinks if the coat is in good condition to start with. A double coat that has been raked regularly holds far less loose undercoat, which means less water, less drying time and less matting. During a seasonal coat blow, strip out as much dead undercoat as you can before the bath rather than after.

Plan the drying time before you run the water. If you cannot give a heavy double coat an hour of active drying, either postpone the bath or book it with a groomer who has a proper dryer — a half-dried thick coat is worse than an unwashed one.