One important key, when it comes to coat care, is to start early. The earlier an Alaskan Malamute learns to tolerate grooming and cleanliness, the quicker she will adjust. That will help to keep grooming sessions positive. Whether it is that occasional bath, nail clipping, or routine daily brushing, the dog should look forward to grooming, not dread it.

In sharing these moments, you are on one hand reinforcing your position as leader, as the dog must cooperate with you, but you are also enhancing the bond you share with your pet.

Needless to say, helping the Malamute care for this mantle of hair, a coat that also tends not to convey that strong and rather distinctive “doggy” odor prevalent in other breeds, is a big responsibility, but not as daunting as it may seem.

Once you make coat and skin care a part of the routine, it will accustom you to what is normal for your pet. You will thus be prepared to recognize immediately if the dog develops abnormal lumps or bumps, or if her skin and coat suddenly become dry or otherwise unhealthy, which could signal an internal health problem.

Unlike breeds that require extensive and frequent grooming to keep their coats healthy and free of mats, the very natural Alaskan Malamute requires no such heroic attentions. She rarely needs a bath, and haircuts are unnecessary. What she does require is an owner who enjoys brushing his or her dog on a regular basis, which can be time consuming but does not require any unattainable level of specialized skill or training.

Understanding the Coat

It would be a terrible mistake to suggest that the Malamute need not be groomed or that she may be neglected and will in turn radiate as a beautiful dog. Rather, the Alaskan Malamute should be groomed on a regular basis, and the more regularly this is pursued, the easier it will be to accomplish.

The first step toward grooming the Alaskan Malamute is to understand that all care in this department revolves around the dog’s thick double coat, the unifying signature of every breed within the family of Nordic dogs. This coat is truly a miraculous feat of Mother Nature’s engineering, embodying, as the name implies, two distinctly different coats that work together to create a dynamic, and extremely effective, whole.

Bury your fingers into the coat of a Malamute, and you will get a feel for both coats. Your fingers are first greeted by long, coarse guard hairs that may even seem a bit stiffer than you are accustomed to feeling on most dogs. Dig in deeper, down to the skin, and there you will find a new sensation, your fingers suddenly coming to rest on a bed of soft, downlike fluff—the undercoat.

Through thissimple act, you have just discovered why this breed has so successfully thrived in some of the most extremely frigid climates and conditions this planet has to offer. It’s all in the coat.

Working together, the dog’s outer guard hairs and soft, fluffy undercoat are able to trap air close to the dog’s body and warm the air with her own body heat. As dense as the coat is—and assuming the dog has not fallen through the
ice into a freezing body of water—the coat is also able to keep dangerous moisture at bay.

As moisture from ice, snow, or rain clings to the outermost tips of the guard hairs, it is unable to slide down toward the undercoat where it might saturate that soft fluff and then the skin, thus chilling and potentially killing the dog in freezing temperatures.

As testament to this system’s efficacy, you have likely seen photographs of Arctic sled dogs curled up in the snow, their coats powdered white as if dusted with confectioners’ sugar, the dogs slumbering peacefully, warm and dry within their protective outer shells.

Useful tip:

A complete head-to-toe brushing of an Alaskan Malamute can be a rigorous, time-consuming job, but you need not complete the entire task in a single grooming session. Once you have trained your Malamute to accept and enjoy the thorough brushing of her lovely coat, concentrate on one section of her body per session.

Choose, say, the front right side, lay your dog down on her side, and concentrate all your efforts on brushing and combing the chosen section down to the skin. Not only will you be treating your pup like a princess at a spa, but in the course of a few days, you will have successfully and thoroughly tended to every inch of hair and skin on her body.