16/02/2025
GETTING IN A TANGLE: Today our breed expert Carol Price is looking at how you can prevent potentially painful ear and coat matting in Border collies:
Anyone with a longer coated Border collie needs to keep their eye out for matting in the coat when grooming (although even collies with mostly shorter coats can have longer haired areas prone to matting). Mats are tangles which arise from areas in your dog’s coat or body where there is most movement or friction. Most commonly you will find them building up behind the ears, behind the front legs where they meet the chest (‘armpits’), the under tail area, and sometimes also in areas where you do not always remember to get to when grooming, like the groin.
Mats may begin as relatively small tangles which then gradually build up into much bigger and harder wads of hair, and sometimes owners may not notice them until they have reached some considerable size, and are then that much harder to remove, without having to resort to scissors.
The trouble with mats is that they can become quite painful for the dog, as they pull the hair and surrounding skin more tightly the bigger they get. Matting behind the ears can also, in more extreme cases, bruise or burst the incredibly delicate blood vessels lying there, and result in a painful haematoma.
MAT PREVENTION
By far the best strategy for coat mats in collies is to prevent them occurring. Start by working out the commonest areas where your dog usually gets them – like behind the ears – and ensure you check these and groom them more regularly and thoroughly. I always prefer to use a simple nylon comb for this, which has bigger/wider teeth one end, and finer teeth the other (see illustration 2). As the trouble with simply brushing these areas is that you do not always get down to the deeper layers of hair where mats most commonly form.
When it comes to preventing ear mats, first hold one of your dog’s ears up (illustration 1) with one hand. Then, with the ear still held up, start combing through the hair behind it with your other hand. Use the end of the comb with wider teeth first, to work through any tangles there, then move on to combing with the finer teeth. Work gently on small sections of hair at a time – as the skin behind the ear is very sensitive - combing both downwards and towards the direction of your dog’s head (illustration 2). Eventually you will have a completely mat free area (illustration 3) in a pretty short time.
Do this regularly and your dog will never have ear mats. You can use the same procedure for any other area of the body where your dog gets mats. If mats have already become very big, you can try teasing them out a few hairs at a time with a comb, though this could take some while. Alternatively you could cut them out carefully with scissors. But it is still always better not to have them in the first place.
All text © Carol Price 2025/Collieology
