Care

It's not that difficult to take care of a Komondor if you know what to do. Some, so called easy care breeds, need more intensive caring. You don't have to comb his hair every week. Tearing the cords and cutting excess hair are the most important things in coatcare.

The caring for a Komondor and especially the coatcare changes with the age of the komondor. We devide these periodes in 3 sections.

1. Puppy-care
2. Care during puberty
3. Caring for an grown and old dog.

There is a separate section about washing a Komondor. You can find it here.

We don't go into discussing coatproblems because we have no expirience with it. It is for example a coat that has not the correct equation between the undercoat and topcoat.

1.Puppy care.

During the first phase of the live of a Komondor, one has very little to do as it comes to coatcare. The coat has yet to grow. But, we can make the pup get used to the handling of his coat.

Touch your pup regularly on his whole body, this will make him get used to the proces after the filting starts. If you have a groomingtable(not necessary but it is usefull), use it as you do the touching. Comfort your dog. Take his head and check his ears and eyes and also his theeth. These handling willbe done in show also so if he is used to it... Pluck the hairs all over the body, not the tear the coat as yet but just to get him to get used to it. The faster you start the less problems you have when the real work starts.

Remove regularly all bits and pieces off dirt, leaves and other stuff from the fur because ones the coat starts to matt it stays in forever. Try to remove it than and you may damage the cord. At this age you don't need to wash your dog but you can do so if he is too dirty. We recall that Artbel ones jumped in a dry(?) ditch and when she got out the stenge was really awfull.

When taking care of the ears, you may pluck the hairs out off it. This lets the air get through and reduces the chances for earinfection or something like that. When your dogs shakes his head a lot or thouches his ear with one off his paws, consult your vet.

Also you need to inspect the tail regularly because this can become a problemarea at some point.

If your dogs runs a lot on hard surfaces, you don't have much to do on nailcare. They'll wair off by themselfs. If they get to long you have to cut them. If you have no experience with this, ask your groomer or vet to do it. If you cut in to the livepart of the nail, your dog will have a lot of pain. This will make cutting them in the future only more difficult.

Use something against ticks and fleas on timely intervals. If you don't know any good product, consult your vet. Fleas can ruin the coat and make it necessary to shave the dog and treat him thuroughly. Thicks are another matter but here also, consult you vet on the best treatment.

2. Puberty

The transition from puppycoat to the filting cords starts at an age of 9 to 11 months. So it's not exactly at the start of puberty. But around this time, the proces of the matting starts. These first cords aren't actually cords but matts that lie about eachother. Due to the movement of the dog the matts change into cords.

It is very important at this stage that you assist the proces. Your Komondor may not like this in the beginning at all. Artbel allways ran away when we started tearing the matts appart. We had to chase her through the house just to get started.

So how do you do this 'tearing of the cords'. Take 2 cords at the top and gently tear them apart until you can see the pink skin. Don't pull to hard, you wouldn't like that either. Be attentive when tearing around the ears because the skin there is not that thick and may be torn apart in the proces.

You can also start at the base of the cords and work your way up. This way you can adjust the thickness of the cords.

One good piece of advice, it sometimes is good to wait if you are not sure of the thickness off a cord because ones a cord is split in 2 you can not go back on your steps. What has been separated stays separated.

With the hairs growing everywhere, we need to keep the intimate parts clear also.This will prevend your dog from an awfull smell. So in short, cut off excess hair around the ass and for sires also around the penis.

If you want to, you can start to give your dog a bath. We'ld recommend not to do it to often as washing takes the greasy part out of the hair. We wash Artbel and Jazzy about 2 times a year. Ones in spring and again in the fall. We also wash the dog if we enter a show but is something else. In a normal situation wash your dog 4 times max. a year and use a quality dogshampoo.We explain the washing proces here.

3. The mature Komondor.

By the time your dog reaches the age of 2 or 3 years, most of the work has been done. The cords keep growing and need to be maintained because at the base they stick together again. Some of this tearing is done by the movement of the dog, the rest you need to do yourself. Especially in the problem areas, meaning the ears, the tail and on the legs.
We do this in the evening in front of the TV. At this time Artbel and Jazzy want to be caressed. Sometimes we get on the ground besidesn them and do a whole sections of them systimatically.

At this age the cords are between 15 and 30cm long. Some of the cords start to touch the ground and become dirty. If you are not doing shows, you can cut them very short but if you do enter shows, you have to cot them just above ground level and do this in an irregular fashion. This looks more natural.

Bewteen the cushions it's the same routine as in puberty. Don't forget to check the nails.

Check the ears regalarly and keep them dry and clean. Also check the eye area. If, after a walk, your dog is dirty, you can wash him. But think that the longer the cords get the more work and drying time you will get.

Keep giving the intimate parts extra care as this will help your dog from becoming smelly.

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