Attack of the burrs! Help!

OUCH!
 
I have no helpful ideas other than shaving her down to get them out. I hate those things! If you can work them out easily with your fingers that may help more so than brushing her out cause I'm sure you are tugging at her fur and that hurts too.
Hope someone comes along and rescues me from this advise.. Uuuuuhmmm sorry. Not much of help here I know.

I was considering shaving her, but I live in Canada. We have had an extremely mild winter so far, but it is finnally starting to get cold so shaving her is not an option. So far I have been mixing gentel brushing and working each bur outh with my fingers. Its tedious, but its the best thing so far.

Add on: Also, her dewlap is incredibly thick with hair and burs alike, its like one big fur coller reaching up to her ears.

Buy a couple bottles of kids detangler...douse her in it, and use a slicker brush them out. If they don't glide out, try people conditioner.

Hi Mike,

You came to teh burr expert! []  A day doesn't go by that I don't tangle (pun intended) with the darn things.  They end up on my dogs, on me and in my folded, clean laundry!  The best thing I've found is Cowboy Magic.  You can get it a a place like Fleet Farm, if you're familiar with that.  Super slippery stuff.  It even makes the floors slipper, so watch out if you spill. 

I've pretty much given up and have shaved most of my ES' beautiful fur.  His once glorious tail is a shadow of its former self.  This is after I've been pulling burrs out of his ears. Look closely, not the best camera. 

Good luck. 

Thanks for all your help! I tried putting a bit of the conditioner in my hands and a little in the brush to get it out, It worked very well. I am still coming across the odd burr in ther fur though, but I am sure I will eventually get them all out. Going to give her a big wash t'morow. Thanks again. Oh and I'll be sure to try out that kids detangler and I'll take a look for that cowboy magic stuff too. Hope it makes next time a little easier.

Mike

Mike, I hope you stick around.  This is a great site filled with great people & a ton of information.

I pull as many as I can out with my fingers, so as not to break the fur, and not to embed them further - they do break up in your fingers, and the darn things can hurt, but it's better than shaving the dog, if you can get 'em out.  Once I have most of it out, I use Cowboy Magic, or a similar product, to get the rest.  If there are some embedded that I can't get either way, and they aren't too close to the dog's skin, I use a groomer's thinning shear to clip once or twice behind the burr, so that I can try to comb it out with a wide tooth comb or get it with my fingers.  At least you save part of the coat that way.  I only use clippers as a last resort, and I use a 3F or 4F so that it doesn't look as "skinned" as with a 10 blade. 

What a timely post, Mike.  I dealt with the same with Odie last night.  I let him out of his kennel when we got home.  Instead of running for the porch, as he normally does, he decided to go for a real run.  I got a flashlight and went to see if I could persuade him to come home.  I couldn't.  The creek at our down the road neighbor's was more appealing, so I just went back home, knowing he would follow shortly.
 
When he got home, he was absolutely covered with cockleburrs.  We spent two hours combing them out of his coat.  I threatened to just leave them and turn him into an outside dog.  I hope he had a good time.  []

Shave her.

A year ago Joey did the same thing.  It was so funny.  He came flying out of the bushes entirly green with sticks poking out all over.  He was so covered he didn't want to walk anymore.  On the ride home he made it worse by rubbing them ito his coat on my back seats.  I spent 3 hours standing over a bath tub with cheap conditioner and a comb.  He wasn't happy and after all the combing and pulling, his coat looked choppie with bald spots.  I should have never touched him and just had him shaved right away.

Thanks again for the quick responces and usefull info people. This is a little off topic but does anyone know the differnt types of burrs theyre are? When I was younger, my family and I lived far up north, surrounded by forest, lakes and mountains, and we had a lot of land (my parents still own the place but it has become more of a cottage) so we did our best to keep it tidy and crisp looking. We had one big problem thought maintaining the land though. It was these HUGE burr bushes that had massive roots and were incredibly hard to get rid of. But these were differnt from the ones that attacked (or maybe she attacked them lol) her yesterday, the ones I see and get caught in regularly. The ones at my cottage were pretty big, like tangerine sized, but the ones I see now, here, where I live are smaller and dont come in giant bushels. These look like the ones stuck in twelvepaw's dog's ears. If anyone has any insight in on this I would appreaciate the knownlegde.