Is a High-Velocity Dog Dryer Worth It for Home Use?
A groomer or a breed group told you to buy a force dryer. The owners who did say which dogs it pays off for, who can skip it, and what goes wrong first.
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An owner with an English shepherd, two German shepherds and a poodle on a fortnightly bath posted in r/doggrooming about the cheap hand-held dryer they bought three years ago. It's still running, still for sale, and now comes in pink.
They were answering a question working groomers get asked a lot: what should somebody who bathes their own dog buy? The groomers' answer is short. Get a force dryer, and for a house on ordinary wiring, a Flying Pig, as one groomer put it. Another wouldn't run it all day in a salon, but for one or two dogs at home it does the job.
If you bathe a long-coated, curly or double-coated dog at home more than a few times a year, here's what the owners and groomers say before you spend the money, and who should keep it in their pocket.
It's a blower, not a hair dryer
What comes out of a force dryer is air, a lot of it, and almost no heat. The trade magazine Groomer to Groomer says the salon units have no heating element, and what warmth there is comes off the motor. Some of the home-sized ones add a heater.
With the narrow nozzle on, the air blasts loose undercoat out along with the water. That's why owners of shedding breeds want one, and why a Malamute owner in the whip-knot thread below only dries outside.
Which dogs it pays off for
The owners who are glad they bought one have the coats you'd expect. A doodle owner a year and a half in says their Flying Pig does a good job. Another household bought a second one for two Shiba Inus.
A corgi-and-doodle house runs a Shernbao and says it works great, and so does the owner of a shepherd, Lab and chow mix.
Poodle people are the keenest. In a six-year-old thread asking exactly this question, one owner who bought a Shelandy says it's very helpful for avoiding tangles. Others in the thread own the same one and are very happy with it. The three-year owner at the top has the same dryer and the same verdict.
Poodles, doodles and the heavy shedders are the dogs these threads were written about. A short-coated dog doesn't come up in any of them.
Who should skip it
- A dog that's fine without one. One standard poodle owner in the same thread has never blow dried theirs and has never had a problem. Brush, bath, towel in one direction, wait, brush again. Most poodle owners blow dry, they say, but it isn't compulsory.
- Puppies, seniors and stressed dogs. Groomer to Groomer's rule is that a force dryer shouldn't be used on young puppies, seniors or dogs with stressful health conditions.
- The allergy plan. If the idea is to blow the dander off the dog, a groomer in the home-use thread says dander is shed skin and isn't blown off the way loose hair is. The person asking still reckons it helps blow more off. Expect less than you're hoping for.
- A shop vac already in the garage. Two owners dry with a shop vac on blow. One uses a mini one and then cleans up the fur with it, the other a large one that gets warm after a few minutes.
The noise is the price
Groomer to Groomer calls the noise the primary downside, and the owners agree. A poodle owner with a pricier unit calls theirs exceptionally loud. A groomer who'd used the most powerful dryer they'd ever met says it made short work of a Samoyed coat and was loud as heck. It scared some of the dogs, too.
Wear ear protection yourself, says the Flying Pig owner in the poodle thread. The trade magazine's other rule is a hooded wrap over the dog's ears, which it calls essential, for the stress as much as the hearing. The stretchy band groomers pull on before the dryer starts is that wrap.
Will it run on a normal circuit?
The groomer's Flying Pig answer came with a condition. It's the pick for a house limited to a standard 15-amp circuit. With 20 amps available they'd go to a bigger salon unit, which costs more. The magazine's version is to read the plate on the dryer and make sure the circuit has more amps than it pulls.
Whip knots, and how not to get them
An owner with a long-coated Malamute and a Flying Pig posted that the dog does well with it, except for tangles at the ends of the guard hairs after every dry. A groomer gave them the word they'd been missing: whip knots. The trade magazine describes the cause as the nozzle flipping the hair about until the ends mat and tangle.
The fixes in that thread add up to a technique.
- Hold it still and move slowly. That's the magazine's rule, and so is holding the dryer farther away the longer the hair is. Start at the rear end and work forward.
- Back the hose off. A groomer's simplest fix is to hold the hose further back from the hair.
- Blow with the coat. Angle the air so it pushes the hair the way you want it to lie, not straight on.
- Swap the pointed nozzle for a flat one. The flat nozzle one groomer reaches for is a couple of inches wide.
One groomer in the thread sets out the choice.
The pointy one is better to blast the undercoat out but yeah it does cause this, you kind of just have to decide if you'd rather deal with brushing out slightly more undercoat, or brushing out the whip knots.
u/ChemicalGrand3533, in r/doggrooming
Outside, and on a clean dog
The Malamute owner was asked where they dry, and the answer settles where yours goes too.
Definitely outside!! The whole neighborhood gets coated and I end up vacuuming my grass like an insane person, but without a good actual grooming set up outside is the only option.
u/Herdofpuppies187, in r/doggrooming
Bath first. A collie owner who tried it on a dirty coat found it extremely unpleasant and gave up on the idea.
Which one, then
Three names, and who stands behind each.
The Shelandy is the one the poodle owners heard recommended over and over, and the three-year owner is still running one on three shepherds and a poodle. That owner's point was how little it cost.
The Shernbao is the other name owners bring up, from the corgi-and-doodle house and the shepherd mix.
The Flying Pig is the groomers' home pick and the one with the most owners here. The doodle, the two Shibas and the Malamute were all dried with one, and a poodle owner calls it a great dryer for the money. The one reply that names a version says dual motor, of either brand.
For one or two dogs bathed at home, start with the Shelandy, which has six years of owners behind it and three of hard use from one of them. Put the rest of the budget into a flat nozzle and something for everyone's ears. The Flying Pig is the one for a household with two heavy shedders and a groomer in its ear, but it still wants a flat nozzle, a slow hand and a patio.
