It's the question we get more than almost any other, usually mid-belly-rub at the front desk: how often should I get my dog groomed? And honestly, the most truthful answer is the one nobody loves to hear. It depends. Mostly on the coat your dog is wearing. A short-haired beagle and a curly little doodle live in completely different worlds when it comes to brushing, bathing and haircuts, and treating them the same is how mats happen. So here's the real, coat-by-coat schedule we'd give you if you brought your dog into our Ville-Marie grooming room and just asked us straight. Plus the Montreal twist nobody warns you about: salt season and shedding season quietly change the whole calendar.
First, the parts every dog needs no matter the coat
Before we split things up by coat type, two jobs apply to basically every dog on the floor. Nails first. Most dogs need a nail trim about once a month, and VCA Animal Hospitals notes that less active dogs, or ones who rarely walk on hard pavement, may need it as often as every three weeks. The easy home test: if you can hear that click-click-click on your kitchen floor, or the nails touch the ground when your dog is just standing there, they're too long. We include a nail trim with hand file in every Bath, Bath & Tidy and Full Groom, and we're always happy to do a quick nail-only visit between grooms.
Brushing is the other one, and this is where coats really start to part ways. VCA is clear that long, silky or curly coats need daily brushing to keep from tangling, while short coats can get away with far less. Daily brushing isn't busywork either. It pulls out loose hair before your dog swallows it during their own clean-up. So the table below is about baths and haircuts, but brushing at home is the quiet hero running underneath all of it.
The coat-by-coat grooming schedule
Doodles and curly coats: every 4 to 8 weeks
If you've got a doodle, a poodle, a bichon or any curly-coated mix, this is the one to circle. That gorgeous fluffy coat never stops growing, so it never stops needing maintenance. The American Kennel Club recommends bathing and trimming poodles and curly doodles about every four to eight weeks, with regular brushing right down to the skin in between. That last part is the part people skip, and it's exactly why we see so many doodles arrive packed with mats hiding close to the skin.
A few honest words about matting. When tangles get bad, VCA strongly recommends letting a professional handle it, and warns that a mat can become impossible to remove once it's been bathed and dried tight. So please don't bathe a badly matted dog and hope for the best. Bring them in. For curly coats, alternating a Full Groom (from $100) with a Bath & Tidy ($75) halfway between keeps the coat manageable and your dog out of that scruffy in-between stage.
Double coats (huskies, goldens, shepherds, labs): a bath every season, brushing weekly
Double-coated dogs play by their own rules, and the biggest one is this: do not shave them. We mean it, and so do the vets. Dr. Jerry Klein, the AKC's chief vet, warns that shaving a double coat strips away the insulating layer, leaves the dog vulnerable to heat, and can permanently change how the coat grows back. That insulation is doing real work, especially here. As one groomer with 40 years of experience told the AKC, double coats were "meant for northern climates," and Montreal dogs blow their undercoat in spring and fall.
So the schedule is less about haircuts and more about brushing and timing. Brush with a slicker and follow with a comb at least once a week, more during a shed. On baths, go easy. The AKC's bathing guide cautions that overbathing a Lab, golden or husky strips natural oils and disrupts that insulation. VCA suggests the bath that pays off most is the one timed to the seasonal shed, roughly April to May and September to October. That's when our de-shedding treatment ($20) added to a Bath (from $50) earns its keep. The amount of undercoat that comes out genuinely has to be seen to be believed.
Short-haired coats (beagles, boxers, Bostons): a bath every 6 weeks or so
The low-maintenance crowd, and lucky you. Short coats don't tangle, don't need haircuts, and only need a quick weekly brush to keep shedding tidy. A bath every six weeks or so usually does it, sooner if your dog has been rolling in something memorable at the park. This is where a simple Bath (from $50), which already includes nails and ear cleaning, is honestly all most short-coated dogs need. No upsell, no full groom. We'll tell you that straight.
One catch for short-haired dogs in this city: thin coats and Montreal winters don't mix. The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association points out that sweaters and coats genuinely help shorter-haired breeds stay out longer, and that poorly insulated spots like ear tips, tails and toes are prone to frostbite. So your grooming budget for a Boston isn't really about haircuts. It's about a good coat and warm feet.
Wire-coated terriers: hand-stripping, not clipping
Terriers with wiry coats (schnauzers, many of the classic terriers) are the ones people get wrong most often, usually with kindness. Here's the thing the AKC explains: clipping a true wire coat instead of hand-stripping it can disrupt the hair's natural growth cycle, soften that crisp texture for good, and even invite skin trouble. And it's the coat type that decides, not the breed name. A Boston terrier or a bull terrier doesn't have a wire coat and doesn't need stripping at all. If you're not sure which camp your terrier falls into, ask us at drop-off. We'll feel the coat and tell you honestly what it wants.
The Montreal twist: salt season changes everything
Here's the part the generic American grooming articles never mention, and it's the part that matters most where we live. Winter here is long and salty. The City of Montreal starts spreading salt and grit the moment sidewalks turn slippery, across roughly 10,000 km of streets and sidewalks, which means your dog is walking through de-icer essentially all winter. Zoom out and it's staggering. Canada lays down an estimated 5 to 7 million tonnes of road salt every winter, per the Sustainable Technologies Evaluation Program.
All that salt does a number on paws. The CVMA warns that salt gets trapped between a dog's toes and causes irritation and inflammation, and that dogs with longer fur on their paws form little ice balls between the toes that trap moisture and rub the skin raw. This part genuinely breaks our hearts a little, because it's so easy to prevent. The fix is a paw-pad fur trim, a quick paw rinse after walks, and the CVMA's own suggestions of dog-safe salt and booties. So from December to March, we'd nudge you toward a quick paw-tidy or nail-and-paw visit between full grooms. Small thing, big comfort.
Then spring flips the calendar again. The double coats start to blow, the de-shed baths get booked, and the whole rhythm shifts toward managing fur instead of fending off salt. If your dog spends summer days in the sandy, gravelly runs of Montreal's off-leash dog parks, by the way, expect them to need baths a touch more often than the schedule above. Park dogs just get dirtier. It's the good kind of dirty, but still.
The easiest move: just book the recurring slot
If there's one habit that saves you money and saves your dog the misery of mats, it's booking the next appointment before you leave the current one. Every coat type above runs on a rhythm, and the dogs who stay on rhythm are the ones who never end up shaved-down for a fresh start. We can set you up on a recurring cadence that matches your dog's coat, fold grooming into a daycare day so it's all done in one trip, or build a multi-service routine if you've also got in-home boarding coming up for a trip. Whatever's easiest for your week.
Not sure where your dog lands on the schedule? That's exactly what we're here for. Come let us feel the coat and we'll give you a real plan, no mystery math. You can book online, call us at (514) 778-CLUB, or just walk into 1800 Sainte-Catherine St E and ask. Maïka, our three-legged Chief Dog Officer, will likely greet you at the door, and Max the Boston terrier (short coat, very low grooming needs, enormous opinions) will supervise. Your dog's coat tells us what it needs. The best thing you can do is bring it to people who know how to listen.