Four Paws

Four Paws is an American pet care brand, best known for the Magic Coat grooming range and the Wee-Wee house-training line. The range here is practical rather than glamorous: brushes, combs, clippers, shampoos, gates, training pads and the cleaners you need when the training does not go to plan.

Choosing A Grooming Tool

• Slicker brushes are for coats with an undercoat or a woolly texture. Keep the pressure light - pressing a slicker into the skin causes the graze groomers call slicker burn
• Pin brushes are the everyday brush for long silky coats. Comfortable, but they will not break a mat
• Bristle brushes do almost nothing on a thick coat and are exactly right on a short smooth one
• A steel comb is the most useful tool in any kit. After brushing, run it through to the skin - if it snags, the coat is not actually brushed
• Gloves and mitts suit cats and nervous dogs that will not accept a brush but will accept being stroked

Mats, And When To Stop

• Mats form where fur rubs: behind the ears, under the collar and harness, in the armpits and groin. Check those four places weekly and you will rarely meet a serious one
• Work from the outside edge of a mat inwards, holding the fur between the mat and the skin so the pull goes into your fingers
• A mat felted tight against the skin should be clipped out by a groomer or a vet. Skin lifts into a tight mat and is very easy to cut through - this is where most home-grooming injuries happen
• Never bath a dog with mats in. Water turns a loose tangle into a solid one

Shampoos: Picking The Right One

• Oatmeal and hypo-allergenic for skin that reacts to ordinary shampoo. Soothing, not medicated - persistent itching needs a vet, because fleas, food allergy and atopic dermatitis all look the same from outside
• Tangles and mats for long coats, bright white for pale coats, odour reducing for a dog that smells
• Tearless cat shampoo for the rare occasion a cat genuinely needs a bath. Never use a dog shampoo on a cat
• Most dogs need bathing once a month at most. Washing weekly strips the coat and causes the itching it is meant to fix
• Essential oil and citrus formulas are for dogs. Cats process plant compounds differently and citrus in particular should never go on them

Nails

• If you can hear nails clicking on tile, they are too long. Overgrown nails change how a dog stands
• Take a little at a time. The quick grows down with the nail, so an overdue nail cannot be shortened in one go
• Keep styptic powder or cornflour in the kit before you start, not after
• Do one nail and give a treat. A dog pinned down for a nail trim remembers it for years

Pet Gates

• Pressure-mounted gates hold by friction and need no drilling - but they must never go at the top of stairs. Hardware-mounted is the only safe choice there
• Free-standing gates mark a boundary rather than seal an opening. Good for small dogs and rented flats, useless against a determined one
• Walkover gates are low and have no latch to get wrong, which also means most medium dogs can clear them
• None of these are certified child safety gates. If a toddler uses the same doorway, buy one that is

House Training

• The Wee-Wee Patch uses synthetic grass over a tray. Dogs learn a surface, so a dog trained on grass indoors moves outdoors far more easily than one trained on paper
• Pads come in sizes from 16.5 x 23.5 inches to 22 x 23 inches, with raised borders on the Insta-Rise range for dogs that aim at the edge
• Pads teach a dog that indoors is allowed, which is the point in a flat but makes going outdoors a second piece of training
• Enzyme cleaners matter more than people think. Urine leaves uric acid crystals that ordinary cleaning does not touch, and a dog returns to a spot it can still smell. Never clean an accident with anything ammonia-based

Good To Know

• Every Four Paws product on this page is currently out of stock. The listings are live so you can see what is coming back; nothing here can be ordered today
• The muzzle in this range is a close-fitting nylon one. It is for short supervised handling only, never for walks or hot weather - a dog that cannot pant cannot cool down
• The Keep Off! repellents are EPA-registered pesticides, not fragrances. Treat the surface, never the animal, and follow the label