# Chester's coat is rather short :(



## Ruth4Havs (May 13, 2013)

Should I expect longer? Chester is almost five and a half months old and has a very soft and plush coat. Skin is perfectly healthy, but I was hoping to have more of a longer coat by now. Ruthie's puppy Charlie, has a longer coat than Chester, and Chester's coat is half that long. I just measured the length of his coat and it is 3 and 1/4 in. long. He got a bath today and we use regular tearless puppy shampoo, but I read somewhere that puppies don't need conditioner until they are like 6 months or something. Chester is fine with it - no itching or irritation. He has only gone to the groomers twice, both for just a trim. I would appreciate some feed back on whether I should not worry about it, start using conditioner, or whatever. Thanks!:becky:


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## Suzi (Oct 27, 2010)

If his hair is soft and his skin is good I think its fine not to use a conditioner. I don't think any of that has to do with how long his coat is. If he has had two trims that is probably why. When he starts getting tangles thats when you might want to add conditioner.IMO you can use human products on him. I have several friends that show and just use pantene inexpensive conditioner. You might just try some and see if you like it.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

If you are having him trimmed, especially if he's been trimmed twice by 5 months, the groomer is probably cutting off hair almost as fast as it is growing. It takes a long time to grow a long coat... A Havanese coat isn't considered mature until they are 3 years old! If you want him to have a long coat, I'd stop having him trimmed at all. People who keep there dogs in full coat don't trim except for feet and sanitary... It's actually against the rules if you are going to show. I know you're not planning to, but just for comparison in terms of growing coats. There are a few people on the forum who keep their dogs in long coats, but trim their bangs, and that's a fine alternative too, if you don't want to deal with putting his hair up in a pony tail all the time.

The other thing is that some Havanese puppies DO get their coats later than others. Kodi had less coat than a lot of forum puppies at 4-5 months, but he caught up. We had another puppy on the forum (I can't remember who, right now) who had such a short coat for so long that some people were wondering if she was a short haired Havanese, except she had more facial hair. She eventually grew a beautiful full coat... Just much later than the average Havanese.

One way or the other, I wouldn't worry about your beautiful boy!


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## Ruthiec (Jun 18, 2013)

Hey Ruth, I think Karen is right. I've only taken Charlie to be groomed once and that was for a sanitary and face trim. So he's never had anything trimmed off his main coat or legs, just his feet. That's probably why his hair is so much longer than Chester's. Also Chester has such long legs  that I guess his hair will have to grow quite a lot before he looks long-haired IYKWIM.


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