Grooming a Dachshund, Collie and Pug

Three dogs with three completely different coats — a smooth Dachshund, a heavy double-coated Rough Collie, and a short-coated Pug with a serious shedding habit — is one of the trickier multi-dog grooming situations to streamline. The right grooming tools depend entirely on coat type: a slicker brush that's perfect for a Spaniel is useless for a double-coated Husky, and the wrong deshedder can actually damage a coat. So before I suggest anything, tell me: what's your current grooming routine like for each of them, and what's the main thing you're trying to solve — is it the Collie's coat, the Pug's shedding, or just the general chaos of managing all three?

That makes complete sense — a Rough Collie's coat is genuinely demanding. You've got a long outer coat that tangles, and a dense soft undercoat that mats if you're not getting through to the skin. A lot of people brush the top layer and think they're done, then find a mat hiding underneath weeks later. Can you tell me how old she is and whether her coat is fully in yet? And is the problem more about tangles and matting, or is it mainly the volume of loose undercoat you're dealing with?

Right, so you need something that genuinely penetrates a full Rough Collie coat rather than skating over the surface — and ideally something that also works on a Pug's short dense coat for the shedding side. My recommendation is the Chris Christensen Big G Slicker Brush. It looks like a large slicker but the long, slightly flexible pins reach through the Collie's outer coat and into the undercoat properly, which most slickers simply don't do. It'll also pick up the loose fur on your Pug better than a standard rubber mitt. For the Collie's tangles specifically — ears, legs, collar area — pair it with a metal greyhound comb to work through those sections once the slicker has done the bulk of the work. The Dachshund won't need much beyond that. That's genuinely all you need for all three.

For a Rough Collie, yes — I wouldn't normally say that about a grooming brush, but the pin length and flexibility genuinely are different to what you get at a lower price point. Cheap slickers either scratch the skin or don't reach through the coat, so you end up doing twice the work or missing half the undercoat. If you're grooming her regularly — which with a Rough Collie you need to be, ideally twice a week — a tool that actually does the job saves you real time and prevents the mats that cost you a vet or groomer visit to sort out. The Big G in the large size is the one to get for her coat volume.

Yes, that's your full kit. A medium-coarse metal greyhound comb — any decent unbranded one will do, they're all essentially the same — for working through the tangle-prone areas after the Big G has loosened the coat. Use the slicker first to go through the whole coat, then follow with the comb in the areas that catch: behind the ears, armpits, collar line, and the backs of the legs. If the comb moves through cleanly, you've actually got to the skin. If it catches, you go back in with the slicker. That check-pass with the comb is the thing that stops mats forming in the first place.