Grooming your Komondor

One of the biggest responsibilities when you have a Komondor is its coat and how to best groom it. The traditional coat is corded. We usually tell people when we are explaining what kind of dog we have that they have dread locks all over, or ask if they have ever seen a mop dog in a dog show before. Because Komondork are pretty rare in the United States it is hard to find a groomer who has worked on a Komondor before or knows how to do the cording. If you have a great groomer they will be willing to find out and help you learn how to maintain it. To maintain the coat also takes a lot of work in order to keep the cords separate and manageable. I found a great site that goes over very well how to take care of the Komondor coat here.

Once your Komondor is around 9 months old and loosing it's soft puppy fur you can start the cording process. It will start to do this on it's own but, from our experience it really is easier to start working on the cords at this stage vs waiting and it possibly getting matted. You will not want to brush your komondor as this will cause damage to the hair and they will not cord properly. You should have a pretty good idea of were to start the cord, but you want it to be the thickness of your thumb, make sure you are not starting to small so that as it grows it can hold the weight and not pull on the skin. Take the section of hair and seperate it down to the skin. You can do this a few different ways. If your komondor will allow you, you can just pull the cords apart to the skin. Neither of our komondor really liked this if the hair was very thick or matted so you may want to use scissors or if you are brave you can use mat splitters. To see how to use a mat splitter and what they are go here.  It is probably best to do this sections at at time vs all at once. It's also completely up to you on how long you want the coat to get. If you are planning on showing your komondor you will want it to grow out all the way, if not you can keep the cords trimmed shorter. Now that your komondor is corded you will need to do some general maintenance by dividing any new hairgrowth into the cords if they are not doing this naturally. You do this the same way you started the cords by pulling them appart. This may need to be done every 2-3months.

The corded coat will pick up debris which you will need to be mindful of if your Komondor is out running around and then allowed in your home. Fall around our house is the worst for this. It is a good idea to go through his coat to shake out dirt or pull out leaves etc. Usually you can bath them every few weeks or months depending on the amount of dirt they are getting in. You will want to use a good quality dog shampoo that is meant to help his coat stay white. Because of the cords they will take longer to dry. For us we will towel off or use a sham wow to help get out as much water as we can out of the cords and then take out our blow dryer. Using it on the cool setting. Both of our dogs do very well with the dryer until they get board. It is very important to completely dry you Komondor. If they are left damp the cords can mildew and the smell is not pleasant. You will also want to make sure you maintain some general trimming around the genitals and belly area along with there paws.

You also don't have to cord your komondor if you don't want to. If your lifestyle is not such that you can maintain a corded coat you can also simply have them clipped short. We have done this as well and it is defiantly easier to maintain. We usually shave our dogs down in the spring or summer and allow the coat to grow out over the winter.

Does anyone reading this have experience with a full corded komondor? If so what has your experience been? Do you have any tips or pointers?