Shedding Season: A Toe to Head Journey

Dogs shed, it’s a fact of life, unless you have some form of doodle or a hairless *shudder* dog. And German Shepherds are especially prolific shedders, but it’s also fun to pull those tufts out, it’s so easy. Of course, the dog is not quite so happy about it. Georgia puts up with it for about a minute before she’s done with you and tries to get away.

Today, I think we are almost done with this round of shedding that started in late May. That’s 4 months of Georgia bunnies all over the house, wisps on the carpet, numerous vacuum cleaner bags, visible hair in the air in the sunbeams.

The hair works its way out from the rear to the front, from toe to head.

June – seriously unkempt rear end.

Pulling it out huge amounts at a time.

July – the vacuum cleaner can hardly keep up.

August – after a dog bath, looks like it’s dissipating.

September – head tufts, this is it, right?

Hopefully, we’ve reached the end for a few months until the next shedding season starts, probably around December or January, when that heavy winter undercoat needs to come in and pushes out the summer coat that is there now.

Tufting season

It seems that there is dog hair everywhere all year round. But, now it’s tufting season, which happens about twice a year for about 3-4 months at a time. Which means that almost 3/4 of the year we’re in a state of tuft. We had a pretty hot weekend a few weeks ago and that was the signal, all of a sudden hair is coming out of Georgia in huge tufts. You can pull them out and end up with a big fistful of hair. Of course it’s not Georgia’s favorite activity, she only has so much patience. She looks quite unkempt with all that hair coming off her hindquarters, but the brushes and rakes don’t work with all that thick undercoat hair. It’s so much fun to pluck those tufts and of course it helps her stay cool to get all that hair out of her and did I mention it’s so much fun.