Dog Brush for Shedding: The Complete 2026 Guide to Tools That Actually Work

Your dog is not "shedding a little." Your dog is conducting a hostile takeover of your living room, one tumbleweed at a time. You have vacuumed twice today. The vacuum is losing. And somewhere in the back of your mind a quiet voice whispers: maybe I bought the wrong brush.

You probably did. Not because you're careless — because the shelf at Petco is a wall of plastic promises, and almost none of the labels explain what the tool actually does to hair. Slicker. Rake. Deshedder. Blade. Curry. Half of those words mean nothing to a normal person, and the other half are marketing inventions.

This guide fixes that. It's built around one principle that most brush reviews skip: the tool must match the coat architecture, not the breed name on the package. A Golden Retriever and a Border Collie are different breeds with the same grooming problem. A Labrador and a Beagle look nothing alike and shed identically. Once you see coats in categories instead of breeds, the whole market collapses into something manageable.

What follows is not a listicle assembled from Amazon star ratings. It's a working reference: the six tool types that matter, the five specific products worth your money in 2026, the safety limits nobody prints on the box, and the retail math that turns an $8 impulse buy into a $30 mistake.

Quick Verdict: If You Only Read One Section, Read This

Most heavy-shedding dogs need exactly two tools, not six: something that reaches the undercoat (an undercoat rake or a deshedding blade) and something that finishes the outer coat (a slicker or a pin brush). A drawer full of brushes usually means none of them is the right one.

The single most effective product for a genuine double-coated heavy shedder — Husky, German Shepherd, long-coat Lab, Bernese — is still the FURminator Undercoat Deshedding Tool. It reaches past the topcoat and pulls dead undercoat without cutting the healthy guard hairs. Used correctly, once or twice a week for 10–20 minutes with light pressure, it can cut visible loose hair around the house dramatically. It is also the most aggressive tool in this guide, and the one most likely to irritate skin if you treat it like a scrubbing brush. More on that below.

If you want one brush that's safe on almost any coat and easy enough to actually use daily, the Hertzko Self-Cleaning Slicker is the pragmatic pick. Fine bent wires lift surface hair, light tangles, and dander; the retractable-bristle button means you're not picking fur out of the head with your fingers. It won't move undercoat volume the way a rake will, but it's the tool you'll reach for on a Tuesday night when you have five minutes and a dog who's already suspicious of the whole ritual.

And if you own a short-coated dog — Pitbull, French Bulldog, Chihuahua, Boxer — skip the blades and the rakes entirely. A rubber curry or the KONG ZoomGroom does more for a smooth single coat than any metal tool, and it feels like a massage instead of a dental exam.

Our Top 5 Picks at a Glance

Prices move. Chewy and Amazon run different promotions on different weeks, and Petco's in-store pricing often doesn't match its own website. Treat the numbers above as a sanity check, not a quote.

Start With the Coat, Not the Brush: The Four Coat Categories That Actually Matter

Brushes get marketed by breed name, which is backwards. There are really only four coat situations that determine which tool you need.

Short double coat. Labrador, Beagle, Pug, Corgi. Dense undercoat, short guard hairs, year-round shedding with seasonal spikes. The shed hair is short and needle-like, which is why it weaves itself into upholstery and refuses to be vacuumed.

Long double coat. Golden Retriever, Husky, German Shepherd, Bernese Mountain Dog, Border Collie. Thick undercoat plus a long outer coat that mats where it's finest — behind the ears, under the collar, behind the front legs. This category generates the loudest shedding complaints and the biggest market for aggressive tools.

Single coat, short. Boxer, Doberman, Weimaraner, Pitbull, French Bulldog, Chihuahua. No undercoat. Light shedding. Skin that's easily irritated by stiff metal pins. The correct tool here is soft and rubbery, not sharp.

Single coat, long or curly. Poodle, Shih Tzu, Doodle mixes. Minimal shed but high mat risk; the hair grows rather than cycles out. A deshedding blade should never touch these coats. The work is detangling and maintenance, not volume removal.

How to Tell If Your Dog Has a Double Coat (60-Second Test)

Part the hair at your dog's shoulder and look at what's underneath. A visible layer of soft, cottony hair beneath a coarser top layer means a double coat. If you see skin relatively quickly and the hair feels uniform from root to tip, you're dealing with a single coat.

This matters because almost every shedding complaint — and almost every brush recommendation online — is really about double coats. A tool built for a thick Husky undercoat is wrong for a short-coated Lab, and a FURminator that's perfect for a Golden Retriever should never touch a single-coated Poodle. The package won't tell you that. The package wants to sell to everyone.

Why Breed Names Are a Marketing Trap

"Best brush for German Shepherds" is a useful search phrase and a useless design principle. A German Shepherd and a Siberian Husky have broadly the same grooming problem: a soft, dense undercoat sitting beneath a longer outer coat. A Labrador and a Beagle look completely different and shed in the same fine, needle-like way. The brush doesn't care what your dog's pedigree says. It cares about density, length, and whether there's an undercoat to reach.

Breed-specific guides are still worth reading — they'll tell you where that breed mats and how often that coat blows. But when you're standing in the aisle trying to choose between two pieces of plastic and metal, the coat category is the decision that matters.

The Six Brush Types That Do the Real Work (and What Each One Is Actually For)

The grooming aisle is full of hybrids and gimmicks. Underneath the noise, six tool types cover every real job. Learn these six and you can ignore 80% of what's on the shelf.

Slicker Brush: The Finishing Workhorse

A slicker is a flat head covered in fine, angled wire pins, usually set 5–10 mm apart. Its job is surface work: lifting dead hair out of the outer coat, breaking up early tangles, and smoothing what's left. It's the workhorse for anything with length — feathering on the back of the legs, the tail plume, the trousers behind the hips.

Used correctly, a slicker is gentle and almost universally tolerated. Used incorrectly, it leaves what groomers call brush burn: fine red scratches from pressing the pins into skin instead of letting them travel through hair. Hold it loosely. Work in short flicking strokes. If your dog flinches, you're leaning too hard.

A slicker is not a deshedding tool in the undercoat sense. It skims the surface. On a double coat in full blow, it's the finishing step after a rake, not the volume mover. The Hertzko's self-cleaning retract button is a genuinely useful feature here because a loaded slicker stops gripping, and most people don't clean their tools mid-session.

Undercoat Rake: The Volume Mover

An undercoat rake is a single or double row of long, rounded teeth on a wide handle. During a coat blow, this is the tool that actually moves volume. It's designed to reach past the guard hairs and drag out the dead undercoat that a slicker only skims. Look for rounded tooth tips and spacing that matches your dog's density — teeth too close together on a Husky will simply jam.

The Maxpower Planet rake is the value pick in this category: double-sided, with a 9-tooth side for breaking up mats and a 17-tooth side for raking out dense undercoat. It's gentler than a FURminator-style blade, which makes it the better choice for frequent brushing and for dogs that fuss at a deshedder. If you own one tool for a Husky, German Shepherd, or Bernese and you don't want the learning curve of a blade, this is it.

The catch: a rake is slower per pass than a wide deshedding blade on a very large dog. On a badly matted coat you'll need to work the wider-tooth side first, patiently, to avoid tugging. And it's not the tool for a short, smooth single coat — a rubber curry does more there.

Deshedding Blade (FURminator-Style): The Aggressive Stripper

The FURminator and its many imitators use a short, fine-toothed stainless blade to strip dead hair from a double coat. The blade reaches through the topcoat and grabs the loose dead undercoat — the stuff that's about to end up on your sofa — without cutting the healthy guard hairs on top. On a true heavy shedder, nothing else removes undercoat this efficiently.

It's also the tool that ruins coats when used carelessly. That blade doesn't distinguish between dead undercoat and healthy guard hairs, and repeated over-passing thins the outer coat and leaves it dull. Two or three passes over an area, then move on. Light pressure. Once or twice a week, not daily.

Size matters more than the marketing suggests. The Large Long-Hair version is built for dogs over 50 lb with coats 2 inches or longer. A short-hair version on a long coat won't reach properly; a long-hair version on a short coat will scratch. Match the tool to the coat and the dog's weight, not just the breed.

Rubber Curry: The Short-Coat Specialist

A soft rubber pad with short nubs. Nothing gets loose hair off a Boxer or a Doberman more comfortably, and it doubles as a bathing tool — worked through shampoo, it loosens dead hair while it cleans. It's also the right first tool for a dog who's suspicious of grooming, because it feels like a massage rather than a procedure.

The KONG ZoomGroom is the best-known version of this idea, and for a short-coated Pitbull, French Bulldog, or Chihuahua it does more than any metal tool on the shelf. On a thick double coat, a curry is a surface pass and nothing more. Don't expect it to solve a Husky in April.

Pin Brush: The Maintenance Tool That Doesn't Deshed

Widely spaced pins, usually with rounded tips, sometimes on a cushioned pad. It's a finishing and maintenance tool — excellent for daily upkeep on a Poodle or a Doodle before tangles become mats, and pleasant enough that most dogs treat it as attention rather than grooming. It will not meaningfully de-shed a double coat, and no amount of enthusiasm will change that.

The Hartz Groomer's Best Combo pairs a pin side with a bristle side. The pin side works through tangles and loose fur; the bristle side is genuinely useful on short-haired breeds — dachshunds, pit bulls, Chihuahuas — for removing dead hairs and redistributing natural oils. It's a compromise tool, but a smart one for a household with two very different coats.

Dematting Comb: The Repair Tool, Not a Routine Brush

Curved, blade-edged teeth that cut through a mat rather than pull it. This is a repair tool. If you're reaching for it regularly, the real fix is upstream: more frequent brushing with the right routine tool. Work at the outer edge of a mat, never at the skin, and if a mat is tight against the body or the skin beneath looks red or damp, stop and let a groomer or your veterinarian handle it.

A dematting comb is not a deshedding tool, and buying one because your dog sheds is like buying a fire extinguisher because your sink drips. Different problem.

Best Dog Brush for Shedding, by Breed and Coat Type

Breed names are marketing, but breed-specific realities are not. A Husky blows coat twice a year in a way that a Chihuahua never will. Here's how the six tool types map onto the dogs people actually search for.

German Shepherd, Husky, and Other Long Double Coats

This is the FURminator's home turf. A German Shepherd can shed up to 26 pounds of fur per year — roughly an entire small dog's worth of hair, annually. A Husky in full blow is the same story with more drama. For these coats, the efficient routine is a deshedding blade for volume, then a slicker or pin brush for finish. If you want one tool and a gentler learning curve, the Maxpower Planet rake plus a slicker is the classic groomer combo.

Frequency matters more than which brush you own during a coat blow. A seasonal blow typically runs two to four weeks, and brushing daily during that window removes more dead hair than an hour-long session on Saturday.

Labrador, Beagle, and Other Short Double Coats

The short double coat is the sneaky one. The hair is short enough that people assume a bristle brush is fine, and then wonder why the sofa looks like a felted wool exhibit. A deshedding blade — specifically the short-hair version — is startlingly effective on a Lab or Beagle. The catch is exactly the trap: because the pile of hair looks so impressive, people keep going, and the blade thins the outer coat. Two or three passes, then stop. A rubber curry is a safer daily tool for this coat type; the blade is the occasional heavy lifter.

Golden Retriever and Border Collie: Feathering Plus Undercoat

These coats combine a soft, dense undercoat with longer feathering on the legs, tail, and trousers. A slicker handles the feathering; an undercoat rake or a long-hair deshedding blade handles the undercoat. The FURminator Long Hair version is built for this exact combination — dogs over 50 lb with coats 2 inches or longer. Border Collies are the same architecture with slightly less undercoat density in some lines; start with the rake before escalating to the blade.

Pitbull, French Bulldog, and Chihuahua: Short, Smooth, Single Coats

These dogs don't have an undercoat to reach. A metal blade or a stiff slicker on a Pitbull or French Bulldog is a skin-irritation machine. The correct tool is a rubber curry or a soft bristle brush. The KONG ZoomGroom is the obvious pick; the Hartz combo's bristle side is a reasonable budget alternative. If your Chihuahua shivers at the sight of a brush, a curry is the tool that convinces them grooming isn't a punishment.

Medium-Hair Dogs: The In-Between Zone Nobody Writes About

Medium coats — think a Cocker Spaniel mix, a Sheltie cross, a dog whose paperwork says "lab mix" but whose fur says otherwise — sit between categories. The default answer for a medium coat is a slicker first, then add a rake if you're seeing undercoat volume. If the coat is single and wavy, a slicker and a pin brush cover the job. If it's double and medium-length, the rake earns its keep during seasonal sheds. There's no single best tool here; the coat tells you which second tool to add.

Top 5 Deshedding Tools We'd Actually Buy in 2026 (Ranked, With the Catches)

Rankings are easy. Rankings with the catches are useful. Every product below earns its place, and every one has a failure mode you should know about before you spend the money.

1. FURminator Undercoat Deshedding Tool — Best for Heavy Double Coats

Price: roughly $35–$55 depending on size and coat length. Best for: Huskies, German Shepherds, long-coat Labs, Bernese, Golden Retrievers. The catch: the most aggressive tool here. Over-use or heavy pressure can irritate skin or thin the coat. It is not for single-coated or fine/curly coats — Poodles, Maltese, Yorkies should never see it. The FURejector button that pops packed fur off the blade is a genuinely useful feature, not a gimmick. If you have one heavy shedder and you buy one tool, this is it. If you have a sensitive dog or a nervous first-timer, start with the rake instead.

2. Hertzko Self-Cleaning Slicker Brush — Best Daily Driver

Price: $15–$22. Best for: daily finishing on almost any coat, and the primary brush for single-coated or wavy dogs that a deshedder shouldn't touch. The catch: it doesn't move undercoat volume. It's a finishing tool. The self-cleaning retract button is what makes it worth the extra few dollars over a basic slicker — you'll actually clean it, which means it'll actually keep working. It's also lighter than a FURminator, which matters on longer grooming sessions and for smaller hands.

3. Maxpower Planet Undercoat Rake — Best Gentler Rake for Double Coats

Price: around $15. Best for: thick double coats where you want undercoat removal without the blade's aggression, and dogs that fuss at a deshedder. The catch: slower per pass than a wide blade on a very large dog, and on a badly matted coat you'll need to work the 9-tooth side first, patiently. For a Husky in full blow, this rake plus a slicker finish is the classic combination groomers use. For a dog that hates the FURminator, this is the peace treaty.

4. Hartz Groomer's Best Combo Brush — Best Budget Two-in-One

Price: roughly $10–$14. Best for: mixed households — a short-coated dog and a longer-haired dog under one roof — or anyone who wants one tool that covers more than one job. The catch: it's a compromise. The pin side won't replace a proper undercoat rake on a serious double coat, and the bristle side won't replace a curry on a smooth single coat. But it's lightweight, sturdy, comfortable to hold, and the stainless pins have safety tips. At this price, it's a sensible first brush and a good travel tool.

5. KONG ZoomGroom — Best for Short-Coated Dogs Who Hate Brushes

Price: around $10–$13. Best for: Pitbulls, French Bulldogs, Chihuahuas, Boxers, and any dog that treats a metal brush like a threat. The catch: it's a surface tool. On a thick double coat it does almost nothing beyond a massage and a light surface pass. But on the coat types it's built for, it's more effective and infinitely more pleasant than forcing a slicker onto a dog with no undercoat and sensitive skin.

The Comparison Table That Saves You $40 in Trial-and-Error

The table below is the one we'd want if we were starting from zero: price, best use, the honest limitation, and where the tool is easiest to buy in the US.

One pattern jumps out: the two tools that actually solve heavy shedding — the FURminator and a proper rake — are not the cheapest. The cheap tools are cheap because they're simpler to make, not because they're secretly just as good. A $8 slicker from Walmart (and yes, they exist, sometimes as low as $4.39–$7.61) can work as a finishing brush. It will not replace a $35 deshedding blade on a Husky. The physics of undercoat removal don't care about your budget.

How to Use a Deshedding Tool Without Ruining Your Dog's Coat

Tool selection is half the job. Technique is the other half, and it's where most people accidentally cause brush burn, thin a coat, or convince their dog that grooming is a contact sport.

The 10-Minute Rule (and Why "More Hair" Doesn't Mean "Better")

A productive session on a heavy shedder runs 10–20 minutes, once or twice a week with a deshedding blade. That's it. The pile of fur on the patio is not a scoreboard. The blade doesn't distinguish between dead undercoat and healthy guard hairs, and repeated over-passing thins the outer coat and leaves it dull. Two or three passes over an area, then move on. Light pressure. If your dog flinches or the skin looks pink, you're done with that area.

Frequency beats duration. Five minutes daily during a coat blow removes more dead hair than an hour on Saturday, and it's far easier on your dog's patience. The goal is to decide where the hair ends up — in a bag, or on your sofa. Brushing doesn't reduce how much a dog sheds; it decides the destination.

Shedding Blade Safety: Two or Three Passes, Then Stop

A shedding blade is a finishing tool for dead undercoat, not a scrubbing brush. Use it on a dry coat (water tightens tangles into mats), work in the direction of growth, and never drag it along the skin or apply pressure. Don't use it on the face, ears, or tail — those areas are thin-skinned and the blade can hurt. If the coat is matted, use a dematting comb or the wider-tooth side of a rake first; a blade dragged through a mat is a veterinary visit waiting to happen.

Clean the tool as you go. A loaded blade or rake stops gripping, and a clogged slicker just polishes the surface. The FURminator's FURejector button exists precisely because cleaning packed fur by hand is the kind of small friction that makes people stop using a tool.

Brushing Frequency by Coat Type (the ASPCA-Aligned Matrix)

The ASPCA's general guidance splits brushing frequency by coat type, and the practical version looks like this: smooth short coats about weekly, double coats three times a week, long or curly coats daily. During a seasonal blow, step everything up to daily for two to four weeks. Long double coats off-season: two to three times a week. Long double coats during a blow: daily, ideally outdoors. Short double coats: twice a week, stepping up to every other day in spring and fall. Short single coats: once a week with a curry is plenty. Long or curly single coats: daily or near-daily, but that's about mat prevention, not shedding.

There's no universal number that fits every dog. A Husky in April and a Chihuahua in July are not running the same program. Use the matrix as a starting point, then adjust to what your floor tells you.

Where to Buy: Chewy, Amazon, Petco, Walmart — and What Each One Gets Wrong

The tool matters more than the retailer. But the retailer determines how much risk you take on when the tool turns out to be wrong for your dog — and "wrong for your dog" is a real possibility even with good research.

Chewy is the low-risk default for pet grooming tools, and not because of its prices. Its return window is 365 days with free return shipping, and the company has a reputation for refunding without requiring the item back in many cases. For a brush, that's absurdly generous — you could use a slicker for a month, decide it's not working on your coat type, and still return it. The catch is that Chewy's prices aren't always the lowest, and the site's recommendation engine leans hard toward sponsored placements. Compare the exact model before checking out.

Amazon has the widest selection and the most volatile pricing. The return policy for pet supplies in the US is generally 30 days, and third-party sellers can have their own rules. Amazon's own listings are also a minefield of near-identical lookalike rakes and slickers with names that sound like they were generated by a language model — because some of them were. Stick to brand-name tools with a track record: FURminator, Hertzko, KONG, Hartz, JW Pet, Safari. The no-name $9 deshedder with 4.7 stars and 12,000 reviews is not the deal it appears to be.

Petco is the place to see a tool in your hand before buying. That matters more with brushes than with almost any other pet product — handle shape, pin stiffness, and head size are things you can assess in 20 seconds in person and not at all from a product photo. Petco's online prices and in-store prices don't always match, and the return window is shorter than Chewy's. But for a first brush or a gift, the ability to hold it is worth something.

Walmart is the budget option, and it's fine for one thing: a cheap curry brush, a basic slicker, or a combo brush for a short-coated dog. The $4.39 slicker and the $7.61 deshedding tool are real products at real prices. They are also not substitutes for a FURminator or a proper rake on a heavy shedder. Walmart is where you go when you've already decided a cheap tool is enough for your coat type — not where you go to solve a Husky in full blow.

Return Policies Compared (Spoiler: Chewy's 365-Day Window Is Not Normal)

Chewy's 365-day, free-return-shipping policy is the outlier. Most retailers give you 30 days, sometimes less on opened pet products. If you're buying a $40 deshedding tool and you're not sure it's right for your coat type, the return policy is part of the real price. A $40 tool with a 365-day return window is a $40 experiment you can undo. A $40 tool with a 14-day window is a $40 bet. That difference is worth factoring in before you chase a $3 discount across three sites.

The "Free Shipping" Trap and the Real Cost of an $8 Brush

Pet retail runs on minimum-order thresholds, and "free shipping" almost always has a floor beneath it. Chewy's free-shipping threshold, Petco's order minimums, and Amazon's Prime subscription all do the same job: they convert a small purchase into a larger basket. A $12 brush with $6 shipping is an $18 brush. A $12 brush that pushes you into a $49 free-shipping basket is a $49 purchase you didn't plan. The brush is not the expensive part. The basket is.

This is the part where the internet's favorite word — "free" — deserves a pair of quotation marks. "Free" shipping is a pricing strategy, not a gift. The retailer has already modeled the average basket size, the return rate, and the margin on the brush. You're not beating the system by adding a $7 item to reach the threshold. You're completing the system's intended design.

The $12 Question: Does a Cheap Brush Work as Well as a $45 FURminator?

Sometimes. It depends entirely on what you're asking the brush to do.

For surface work — lifting loose hair off a short coat, smoothing a medium coat, daily maintenance — a $10–$15 slicker or curry does the job. The Frisco slicker at around $8 and the Hertzko at $15–$22 both remove loose surface hair; the Hertzko adds a self-cleaning mechanism that makes it more likely you'll use it consistently. On a short-coated dog with no undercoat, a $45 deshedding blade is overkill, and a $10 curry is the more effective tool.

For undercoat volume on a double-coated heavy shedder, the price gap is real. A no-name $9 deshedding tool and a $40 FURminator are not the same instrument. The blade geometry, the tooth spacing, the skin guard, and the ejector mechanism all affect how much undercoat you remove per pass and how much damage you risk. The FURminator's edge is precise enough to grab dead fur without cutting healthy guard hairs; a cheap imitation often either grabs nothing or grabs everything. The difference isn't brand snobbery. It's metallurgy and design.

The rational spending rule: spend on the tool that reaches the undercoat, save on the tool that finishes the surface. A $15 slicker and a $40 deshedder is a better $55 than three $18 tools that each do half a job.

What Nobody Tells You About Deshedding Shampoos and "Deshedding Treatments"

Deshedding shampoos are a supporting act, not a solution. A bath can loosen dead hair and make brushing more productive — working a rubber curry through shampoo does genuinely help dislodge loose undercoat. But no shampoo changes the shedding cycle, and no conditioner "stops" a coat blow. If a product promises to reduce shedding at the source, it's selling you a story about biology that biology doesn't support.

What a bath actually does is make the next brushing session more efficient. Bathe, dry thoroughly, then brush. Never brush a dirty, wet coat — water tightens tangles into mats, and a wet mat is harder to remove than a dry one. The ASPCA's general bathing guidance is at least once every three months for most dogs, more often for outdoor dogs or those with skin issues. During shedding season, a bath every few weeks can make the brushing routine noticeably easier. That's the honest version of the "deshedding treatment" pitch.

Frequently Asked Questions (Real Questions, Direct Answers)

What is the best brush for a dog that sheds a lot?

For double-coated heavy shedders like Huskies, German Shepherds, and long-coat Labs, the best single tool is a deshedding blade such as the FURminator, used once or twice a week with light pressure. For daily maintenance and finishing, a slicker brush is the better everyday companion. For short-coated single shedders, a rubber curry is more effective than any metal tool.

How often should I brush my shedding dog?

It depends on coat type. Smooth short coats need about weekly brushing, double coats about three times a week, and long or curly coats daily. During a seasonal coat blow, step up to daily for two to four weeks. Frequency during the blow matters more than the length of any single session.

Should you brush a dog before or after a bath?

Before, always. Brush a dry coat first to remove loose hair and prevent tangles from tightening. A wet coat tightens mats and makes them harder to remove. If you bathe during shedding season, dry the coat thoroughly and then do a second brushing session to catch the hair the bath loosened.

Can I use a human hairbrush on my dog?

No. Human brushes are designed for hair that's denser at the root and grows continuously. Dog coats have different density, different oil distribution, and in double-coated breeds, an undercoat that a human brush can't reach. A human brush will either skim the surface or pull painfully. Use a tool designed for the coat type.

Does a deshedding tool hurt dogs?

Not when used correctly. A deshedding blade with light pressure and two or three passes per area removes dead undercoat without discomfort. It hurts when pressed into the skin, dragged through mats, or used on thin-skinned areas like the face and ears. If your dog flinches, stop and switch to a gentler rake or slicker.

Is a slicker brush or an undercoat rake better for shedding?

They do different jobs. A slicker lifts surface hair, breaks early tangles, and finishes the coat. An undercoat rake reaches past the guard hairs and pulls out dead undercoat. On a double coat, the rake does the volume work and the slicker does the finishing. On a single coat, the slicker is the more useful of the two.