The Ten Minute Brushing Habit We Started in the Evenings

Tupelo came home on a Saturday in the middle of March, and by the following Tuesday my floors had changed color. He is a Boykin Spaniel, about thirty two pounds, with a liver brown coat that carries a little wave and a docked tail that never sits still. I had gone twelve years without a dog. I had forgotten what a coat does to a house.

I am not exaggerating about the floors. I was sweeping the kitchen twice a day. His hair turned up on the arms of the sofa, on the bath mat, and once, memorably, inside the butter dish. The marsh walks made it worse. Brunswick sits right up against the water, and the boardwalk paths out there are full of burrs and seed heads that grab a wavy coat and hold on until somebody sits down and works them out.

I ordered the Depets self cleaning slicker brush in late March, in his second week home. It was the first grooming tool of any kind I had bought for him, and I bought it for two reasons the listing promised: pins that would reach down into the coat he has, and a way to get the hair back off the brush without picking at it with my fingers.

The listing says the stainless steel needles are set with a 60 degree bend to reach the skin. I am not a groomer and I will not pretend to be one, so here is what I noticed instead. The brush moved through the hair on his shoulders and flanks without the scraping, tugging feeling I remembered from slicker brushes in the years I had Duke. Tupelo did not pull away. He leaned into it, which surprised me more than anything else about that first afternoon.

The part I did not expect to care about is the button. Push it and the hair comes off the pins in one soft pad and drops into the bag I keep on the porch. The listing says the hair comes away easy when you push the button. That is what happened for us, and it is the reason I kept using the thing instead of leaving it in a drawer.

What it changed in the house is smaller than a person might hope and bigger than I expected. He still sheds, and nothing about a brush changes that. But ten minutes on the back porch after his evening walk puts the hair in a bag on the porch instead of on my kitchen floor. My sweeping went from twice a day to once, and then to a quick pass when I think of it.

Ten minutes on the back porch after his evening walk, and the hair went into a bag on the porch instead of onto my kitchen floor.

The evening part matters more than the brush part, and I did not see that coming. Tupelo gets a walk around the neighborhood in the morning and another one at dusk. After the dusk walk he is fed and tired and willing to stand still, so brushing became the last thing we do outside before the door closes. He stands on the mat by the back steps. I work from his shoulders back toward his tail, then down his flanks, then the feathery bits on his legs. Ten minutes, less if he is in a mood.

Marsh walks are a separate job. After a boardwalk path he comes home with burrs set into the wave on his chest and behind his front legs. I work a small section at a time and hold the skin flat with my other hand so nothing pulls. Those sessions run longer than ten minutes, and I do them in daylight when I can see what I am doing.

Three things I would want a friend to know before she bought one. This is not a fix for shedding, and I would not let anyone tell her it is. A dog has to be willing, and the first week Tupelo thought the brush was something to be chewed, so I kept those sessions short and stopped while he was still happy. And I stay away from his face and his ears with it and go gently over his belly.

I asked my vet at his arrival checkup what she thought about brushing a coat like his. She said regular brushing was reasonable and that a slicker is one of the tools people use. That is the extent of my expert opinion and I am not going to stretch it further than that.

The listing gives the brush as just under six inches long and about three and a half ounces. That sounds like nothing, and it is the reason I can hold his leash in one hand and brush with the other while he stands on the steps. It has been dropped twice on brick. It still works.

It lives in a basket by the back door now, next to the harness and the leash, which tells you how often I reach for it. Beyond pushing the button, I have wiped the pins with a damp cloth once or twice. That is the whole of the upkeep.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you were at my table with a cup of coffee and you asked me whether to bother, here is the short version. If your dog has a coat that sheds and gathers the outdoors the way Tupelo's does, and if you have ten minutes in the evening and somewhere outside to do it, I would buy the Depets brush again. It is not the whole answer to living with hair. It is the tool that made the daily part manageable, and it is small enough that I do not mind taking it down from the hook.

I would not tell you it works for every dog. A dog with a different coat, or a dog who hates being handled, may need a different tool and a groomer's advice. I would tell you to ask your vet about the coat in front of you and to keep the first sessions short enough that the dog is sorry when they end. That was the part I got right by accident.