How to Groom a Mastiff: 8 Expert Tips

If you’ve ever taken the time to groom a Mastiff, you know it doesn’t take much for it to become a major ordeal. We understand how challenging it can be, and that’s why we wanted to highlight a few different tips you can use to keep your Mastiff in tip-top shape.

The 8 Tips on How to Groom a Mastiff

1. Stick With a Schedule

When you’re thinking about how often you need to bathe, brush, and all the other ways to groom your Mastiff, it’s best if you stick with a schedule of some sort. Sticking with a schedule ensures you meet all the minimum requirements without overdoing anything.

If you try to skip the schedule, it’s extremely easy to forget things, and sometimes, you might overdo a task and create problems. For example, bathing a dog too often strips the coat and skin of natural oils and can cause irritation.

Finally, by sticking with a schedule you’re getting your Mastiff comfortable with grooming in general. If they know what to expect and when to expect it, they’re far less likely to create problems and make it more challenging for you.

2. Use the Right Products

When you’re grooming your Mastiff, it’s essential that you use the right products for the job. This means a high-quality brush, the right shampoo, high-quality pet toothpaste, and more. While you might think that any product is better than no product, this isn’t always the case. For instance, the wrong pet shampoo can strip away essential oils and might even cause an allergic reaction.

3. Bathe and Brush

While it’s important to bathe your Mastiff, you also need to brush out their coat. Just because it’s a short coat doesn’t mean it doesn’t benefit from brushing out hair. However, since it’s not a long coat, it’s less prone to matting and you don’t need to brush it quite as often.

We recommend quickly brushing them out every 2 to 3 days to remove excess hairs, to control shedding, and to keep any hair from matting up.

4. Trim Their Nails

When you’re grooming your dog, don’t forget about their nails! Don’t cut the nails too short, as this can hurt them, but trimming them every month or two will help prevent a wide array of common health problems.

If you get your Mastiff used to you trimming their nails early on, it’s usually not too big of an ordeal, but if they’re not used to it then it can become a challenging event, especially with a dog of this size.

5. Don’t Forget Their Teeth

Dental issues are an extremely common problem for older dogs, and one of the best ways to prevent these problems is to keep up with their oral hygiene. Brush their teeth once a day with high-quality pet toothpaste and you significantly reduce the likelihood of them developing dental problems in the future.

6. Don’t Bathe Them Too Often

When it comes to dog baths you can definitely overdo it. The problem when you bathe your Mastiff is that you’re stripping their skin of beneficial oils and nutrients. A bath every month or two isn’t a problem, but if you try bathing them every week or so, it doesn’t give the oils and nutrients enough time to recover.

7. Give Them a Treat

If your Mastiff decides that they don’t like their grooming schedule, they can make it far more difficult for you to complete it. This is why we highly recommend giving them a few treats throughout the process.

This gives them something to look forward to while getting groomed and makes it far more likely that they won’t defy you so much. And when it comes to grooming a Mastiff, a cooperative Mastiff is much easier to work with.

8. Consider Their Diet

One of the most overlooked aspects of your Mastiff’s skin and hair care is their diet. A low-quality diet can create all sorts of problems for their coat and skin. You don’t need to spend a ton on a fresh-food-only diet if you don’t want to, but you need to ensure they’re getting a quality diet that meets all their nutritional needs.

Do Mastiffs Require a Lot of Grooming?

With a short coat, a Mastiff has fewer grooming requirements than many other dog breeds. Typically, you can get by with a quick brushing every few days, and you should give them a bath about once every 2 months.

Compared to other dogs, this is far less grooming, but because of their larger size, it can still feel like quite a bit of work when you finally need to do it.

Do Mastiffs Cause Allergies?

Mastiffs are not hypoallergenic dogs and can undoubtedly cause allergic flare-ups for their owners. Keeping up with brushing and bathing can help reduce the amount of dander and allergens they cause, but even with a thorough grooming schedule, you won’t be able to eliminate all the potential allergens.

Conclusion

We know how challenging it can be to groom a larger dog, but if you stay consistent, your Mastiff will come to know what to expect and you shouldn’t have to deal with the worst of it for too long. Stay consistent and give your Mastiff what they need with the right products!

Featured Image Credit: Bobex-73, Shutterstock