Is it the color?

[Stacy]

Okay, so maybe a weird question. The girls get groomed on the same day. I had an appointment for 7 weeks later (usually 6, but they were closed the week between Christmas and New Years.) The groomer canceled and rescheduled for 3 weeks after that, so it was 10 weeks between grooms. Too long, I know. But I'm kind of at their mercy here. 

So knowing this, I tried to keep them brushed. I spent a little time on Katie - the black one. And I spent a lot of time on Maggie, the white one. Katie was no problem, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle with Maggie. I kept finding little mats behind her ears and in her neck and on her belly - and trying to brush her involves chasing her all over the house with the brush, so it's hard. 

So at the end of the appointment Maggie was shorter than I would have liked, but Katie was fine. I asked if Katie had mats and she said no. I asked her what is Maggie's deal? And she said that Maggie's hair is more cottony than Katie's. 

So, why is that? Does it have anything to do with the color of the hair? I know that sounds weird, but when I had papillons I always felt like the white hair tangled more than the black hair on the same dog.

Or is it the fact that Maggie is (supposedly) 88% poodle and 12% lab and Katie is 75% poodle and 25% golden? Or maybe it's just an individual dog thing and it doesn't have to do with any of those things. 

I'm really curious about why they are so different when I do the same thing with both of them. 

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

I think it's just the texture of the hair.  Riley's hair is super long (about 5") but doesn't really mat, we do brush her every couple days though.  Luna's hair was downy soft under her ears and matted all the time, I think Riley's is a bit coarser even though it's puppy fur still and seems to mat a lot less.  Her black and white hairs seem to behave the same.

[Lori, Daphne, Lucy & Pippa]

It definitely just the luck of the draw. The texture and quality of the hair they get is different with every dog. I have a white F1b and honestly I don't brush her as often as I should. Just because she doesn't need it. I brush her maybe once every couple of weeks but ZI have let her go as long as 4 weeks.  She just doesn't get matted often. When she does, it tends to be in the underarm area. I always make sure she is fully combed out before she goes to grooming to avoid her pain and to avoid the complete shave. Daphne was just blessed with a good coat.

[Peggy]

I also had a cream colored f1b that mated terribly. I had to brush him daily, and at 100 pounds it wound up being at least a 90 minute job.  And, the next day he would be full Of new mats.  Of course when his coat was shorter the comb would just slide right thru and it took maybe 15 minutes to comb him out. Our black boy, 70 pound multi-gen Labradoodle can go a week or more between combing, and rarely mats. I just figured their different coats was due to how far back their breeding went. 

[Stacy]

I wondered if it had something to do with the pigment in the hair... I don't know, maybe that's totally off. I know breeding has a lot to do with it. There was a huge difference in type of hair between my F1 and F1b. Ava's hair was straightish and shaggy and she didn't need to be groomed except for her face once in a while. Katie turns into a wooly bear when she gets long and Maggie turns into the mat monster. I think I'll probably end up keeping Maggie shorter, not short, but shorter. It just seems kinder to her not to have to deal with the grooming that is required to keep her longer. She doesn't love all the brushing. And that's the thing. I could brush her every day right now and she doesn't really need it. There seems to be a length that it just seems to mat overnight. I need to figure out exactly what length that is. 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Ned is cottony. High, high maintenance coat. He also hates being groomed. I think it’s more painful for these guys to even be brushed. If we really want Ned mat-free, he needs to be fully brushed and combed (40-60 minute sessions) several times a week. We used to do that but we are old and tired and he hates it so much that we’ve compromised- we do ears and tail, get him professionally groomed monthly, and keep him shorter than we used to. I really don’t think it’s color but Clancy’s shedding coat has obvious different textures and his whiter part is silkier and the ginger is wirey. The wirey doesn’t ever mat. Charlie has a fleece non-shedding multi-color coat  His chocolate ears mat; his white legs get clumpy. His mats mostly brush out while Ned’s don’t. Charlie’s tail is a coarser texture and very straight (much like Ned’s easily matting tail) but it doesn’t mat. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It's not the color. It's an individual thing having to do with the particular mix and the Poodle parents' coats. Not all Poodle coats are the same, but they do all mat, lol. 
I'm convinced that the cotton-y thing is from the mixing of the extremely different coat types. 
Color has no bearing on Labs' coats, nor on Poodles' coats. And Goldens are basically all the same color, lol. 

[Stacy]

I was just thinking that in human hair blonde is usually finer than some of the other colors. Maggie has odd hair. She grows these long wirey apricot colored hairs that stick out through the soft white hairs. When she's freshly groomed her hair is so soft. I just struggle with keeping her like that until her next grooming appointment. She's not a foo-foo girl. She likes to run and slide in the mud. I tried telling her that there's a waiting period before she's supposed to get dirty again, but I don't think she's listening. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Blondes have more hair per square inch (or whatever measurement is used) than any other hair color, lol. They have more hair everywhere on their bodies than people with other hair colors. Texture may be finer, but that's most likely due to ethnicity than color. Natural blondes of mixed race have tons of hair, and it's not fine, lol. 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I truly believe the cottony texture is the combination - whoever thought that was a good idea - NOT.