After Angel’s disastrous visit to the groomer in mid-December, her fur is finally starting to grow back thick and beautiful. It is now about a half of an inch long so she is not needing to be bundled up to go outside when the sun is out. She still needs her sweater on for early morning or night trips to her potty place but at least not during the day now.
This experience got me thinking about what causes a dog’s fur to grow so I looked up some information about this. It seems that dogs are interesting creatures because more than one hair can grow from an individual hair follicle. The main coat is refereed to as the “topcoat.” This topcoat can be surrounded by smaller secondary hairs known as the dog’s down or undercoat. In Angel’s case, her undercoat is really growing in thick to give her extra warmth during this cold weather season. The growth cycle of a dog’s coat is controlled by several things such as temperature, increasing or decreasing daylight hours, body hormones, nutrition, stress and of course, the dog’s own genetic make-up. When the days become longer and warmer, the dog’s coat thins out in preparation for summer when a lighter coat will be more beneficial. Thank goodness Mother nature knows better what a dog needs than a human groomer!
