We often go to Emmarentia Dam in Johannesburg to take Vega, our golden retriever for a nice walk and a swim. He just loves swimming in the many dams, and is particularly obsessed with swimming after ducks, who appear to make a game of teasing him.

This past Sunday, after our usual walk (and swim for Vega), we were heading back for the car, when Vega started rolling around in some grass. Now he often does this to dry himself off, so we thought nothing of it, until he got up and we saw that the patch of grass he had chosen to roll in, was full of burrs from a vicious plant! Our hearts sank as we remembered the last time this happen. My wife and I had to cut off a lot of his beautiful coat as it was so difficult to get the burrs out using a brush, and our fingers.

We decided to ditch our plans to have a coffee at Vida, and came up with a strategy:

We would go past a pet shop to pick up a new brush (his old one had broken), and would also pick up some conditioner to rub onto the fur in the hope that it would be easier to get the brush through to the burrs.

Confronted with a variety of dog brushes at the pet shop, we choose 2:

one which looked like a comb with steel teeth that rotate, (R85), and a more normal looking one with 2 sides to it - a "wire pin" side and a bristle brush side (R30).

The combination wire pin and bristle brush did not work.

My wife started on the dog with the wire pin brush, and I used the comb. After a couple of minutes, the wire pin brush started losing pins, as it required a lot of force to move it through the matted/burred hair, and being a cheap brush, obviously wasn't the best quality.

Some of the pins had fallen out and some had bent after a couple of minutes.

I was have much better success though, and the metal comb brush was working out the burs easily. It took an hour, but because of the way the metal comb brush worked, the dog was not stressed or in any pain during the brushing.

Pet comb with rotating teeth that helped remove this burry, knotted dog's hair.

I'm happy to say that we have finally found the ultimate brush for our dog. It removed knotted hair as well as all the burrs. His coat is back to it's beautiful, shiny, golden self.