The 60-Second Skin Check You Can Do While You Brush
Part the coat down to the skin in six places, look at the skin rather than the hair, and ask one question: is anything different from last week? That's the whole check. It takes under a minute, it fits inside the brushing session you're already doing, and it catches the things that are much easier to deal with early than late.
The reason to attach it to brushing rather than make it its own event is simple — you'll actually do it.
Why the Skin and Not the Coat
Most owners look at their dog every day and check their dog almost never. The coat is what you see: whether it's shiny, whether it's shedding, whether there's a mat behind the ear. The skin underneath is where problems start, and a medium or long coat hides it completely.
PDSA's grooming guidance puts the habit plainly: always check your pet's skin for parasites, and check regularly — especially after they've been outside. Their second instruction is the one that turns a look into a decision: keep an eye out for any changes, because a change in your pet's skin or coat could be a sign of a problem, and speak to your vet with any concerns.
Changes. Not perfection. You are not trying to diagnose anything. You're building a mental baseline so that when something shifts, you notice it in week one instead of week six.
The Six Places
Work in this order and it becomes muscle memory:
- Behind and inside the ear flaps — where mats start and where ticks like to sit.
- Under the collar — the spot nobody looks at, and the spot where rubbing shows up first.
- Down the spine to the base of the tail — flea dirt collects here before anywhere else.
- The armpits and the groin — thin-coated, warm, and where redness shows earliest.
- Belly — easiest place to actually see skin, and worth using as your reference for what "normal color" looks like on your dog.
- Between the toes and pads — for anything lodged, and for the licking that tells you something is.
Six places, ten seconds each. If your dog will only give you three of them today, do three and get the rest tomorrow.
The Four Things to Look For
Color. Compare against the belly, which is your dog's own baseline. Pink and even is fine. A patch that's noticeably redder or darker than the rest is worth a note.
Texture. Run your fingertips flat across the skin, not through the coat. You're feeling for bumps, scabs, crusting, or a patch that feels thicker than the skin around it.
Debris. Flakes, black specks, anything gritty at the base of the hair. Black specks that turn rusty-red on a damp tissue are flea dirt, which means fleas even if you never see one.
Your dog's reaction. A dog who's fine everywhere except one spot is telling you where to look. That's information, and it's the kind you only get by touching the whole dog on a regular schedule.
What Makes This Easier
Fingers do most of this. You genuinely don't need to buy anything to run a skin check, and if you take nothing else from this page, take the six locations.
That said, a fine steel comb makes the parting step faster on a dense or long coat — it opens a clean line down to the skin and holds the hair apart while you look, which fingers alone won't do on a Golden or a doodle. Our 6-piece comb set includes a 7.5 inch (19 cm) double-width comb — a 36-tooth fine section and a 26-tooth wide section — plus five fine steel combs whose tooth spacing is close enough to lift flea dirt out of the coat while you're down there. The tips are rounded, which matters when you're working around ears and eyes.
If you're checking as part of a normal brush-out, a self-cleaning slicker with rounded pin tips clears the topcoat first so there's less hair in your way — the pin bed retracts at the press of a button and the collected fur lifts off in one piece, so you're not stopping mid-check to pick pins clean.
Neither is required. Both just remove friction from a habit that only works if it's frictionless.
What to Do When You Find Something
Write it down. Date, location, size, and what it looked like — a photo on your phone against something for scale is better than a description you'll misremember.
Then use the change rule: if it's new, growing, spreading, or bothering your dog, that's a call to the vet rather than a wait-and-see. Redness that spreads over days, a bald patch with angry skin under it, persistent scratching at one location, or any smell coming off the skin — none of those are grooming problems, and no brush will help them.
If you're specifically trying to work out whether heavy seasonal shedding is normal or something more, we covered where that line sits separately.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How often should I do this?
A: Attach it to brushing rather than a calendar. PDSA's guidance for dogs runs from daily brushing for long-haired breeds down to once weekly for short-haired ones — so the check happens at whatever frequency your dog's coat already requires.
Q: My dog won't hold still for a full check. What do I do?
A: Do fewer locations per session and rotate. Three places today and three tomorrow gets you the same coverage over a week, and doesn't teach your dog that grooming means being pinned.
Q: Does this work the same for cats?
A: The locations and the four things to look for are the same. Cats generally give you shorter sessions, so splitting the check across days matters more.
Q: I found a small lump. Should I panic?
A: No — but do get it looked at rather than watching it for months. Note the date and size, and book a vet appointment. Most lumps turn out to be nothing; the ones that don't are far easier to deal with early.
Sources
- PDSA — How often should you groom your pet? (https://www.pdsa.org.uk/pet-help-and-advice/looking-after-your-pet/all-pets/grooming-pets)
- American Kennel Club — Common Causes & Remedies for Your Dog's Dry, Itchy Skin (https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/dry-skin-on-dogs/)