Conquering Mats

How do mats happen? What can we do to prevent them?  And how to we get them out?!?

Left in its natural state, the hair in our Bichon's coat gets little tangles just from normal, daily activity. Just rolling and rooting around leads to tangles.

Scratching also creates tangles.  For health reasons, the cause of chronic itching and scratching needs to be identified and solved.   Another huge benefit of eliminating the need to scratch will be fewer tangles!

Another tangle maker is doggie clothing.  Whether the doggie "duds" are worn for fun (cute outfits),or function (coats and sweaters), a quick brush job is in order after "undressing" our furry pals. This will eliminate tangles created as the hair rubbed against the clothing.

Unless these little tangles are brushed out, they get snarled together.  Dead, shedding hair  gets added to the snarls, making them bigger and thicker.  

Dead, shedding hair is an issue for all of our Bichon breeds.  However, it is much more of an issue for the breeds with under-coats. With our Bichon breeds, the Bichon Frise, the Bolognese, and the Havenese are double coated; that is these three Bichon breeds have both a top coat and an under-coat.  By contrast, the Coton de Tulears, Lowchens, and Maltese are single coated Bichon breeds, because they have no under-coat.

To re-cap: regular brushing is important for preventing matting for a couple of reasons.  It eliminates tangles. It also gets rid of the dead, shedding hair that adds to the snarls.

Without routine grooming tangles grow into mats. Mats are simply dense clusters of snarls and dead hair. 

So while simple combing and brushing can prevent mats, these procedures are not effective  for getting rid of mats. 

Unfortunately wetting mats with water tightens them.  So washing your little Bichon buddy before getting rid of the mats first, only make things worse.  This also applies to tangles; if they aren't brushed out first, bathing makes bigger and tighter.

Severe matting has additional problems. As hair farther from the original tangle becomes part of the mat, the skin underneath can be pulled. This can be extremely painful! Skin irritations and even ulcerated skin can result from the constant pulling.

Mats are most likely to form in these areas:  behind the ears, under the collar, underneath the front legs (the "armpit area"), in the groin area, and between the hind legs, and  on the backs of the hind legs.  Routine grooming should always include attention to these areas, with the best plan being to get small tangles out before they grow into mats.

Unfortunately, there are no "magic" formulas for eliminating well-developed mats.    For heavily matted conditions that involve mats larger than an adult thumb, it's probably advisable to consult a professional groomer. 

The good news is that there are some "tricks" for  working on mats that can help one make the most of the time while minimizing discomfort for your little buddy as well as hair loss.

Now that we know how mats develop, where they are most likely to crop up, and how to prevent them we'll learn some of the "tricks" for conquering them.

Keep your eyes open for the next Bichon-Gram.  It will direct you the second article on mat elimination!