Dog Grooming Diseases

Whether you take your dog to a professional for grooming or you do all of his grooming at home on your own, you must always use sterile tools and sanitary methods in order to ensure that your pet does not pick up any dog grooming diseases. However, even if your grooming is impeccable, your dog's own grooming habits can also sometimes lead to disease. Knowing how to recognize signs and symptoms of dog grooming diseases of any origin will help you keep your pet happy and healthy.

  1. Toenail Disease

    • Canine toenail diseases are spread in the same fashion that human toenail diseases are: by unclean surface contact. Make sure that you sterilize all clippers using rubbing alcohol even if they were clean when you put them away. Keep an eye on cracked toenails since the dog may try to lick them to make them feel better, which can cause additional irritation. Overgrown toenails are also prone to infection, so it is important to groom on a regular basis or you can end up with infected, diseased toenails that cannot be cut in a conventional manner.

    Skin Disease

    • If a dog has ringworm then this can be passed both from dog to dog and from dog to human if the affected skin comes into contact with unaffected skin. If an adult is grooming a dog with ringworm, then that adult may become infected, then pass the infection on to another dog. Dogs, cats and children are most susceptible, and it can be passed through contaminated grooming tools like brushes as well.

    Ear Diseases

    • Ear diseases are not always instigated by the grooming process, but a mild, undiagnosed problem can become severe thanks to grooming. If your dog is a breed that requires plucking of ear hair, always make sure that you carefully clean and check the area for redness and inflammation before you start that part of the grooming process. Otherwise, plucking and trimming can exacerbate a disease and even cause it to spread.

    Tapeworms

    • Dogs can occasionally give themselves a tapeworm through their own grooming habits. If your dog has fleas, then in the course of grooming she is likely to occasionally eat one. Should that flea contain tapeworm eggs, then the dog will end up with an infection. Should another dog groom that infected dog by licking or biting, that second dog is also likely to pick up the infection.