The Best Brush For A Corgi (What Worked For Me)

Last Updated on January 23, 2024 by May Jones

I love my corgi but damn she’s a heavy shedder. Like, I used to have a neat and tidy home without too much effort.

Now I go through periods (shedding season) where I literally need to vacuum on the daily, lol.

I went through a whole range of different brushes for my corgi, with quite a learning curve.

In this article, I’ll share with you my experience as well as what I think is the best brush for a corgi.

✨ Too long didn’t read ✨

The best brush isn’t one brush. It’s multiple. Here’s a quick overview of the brushes that worked for me:

How bad is Corgi shedding?

It’s bad. Seriously, it’s bad. I love my corgi and couldn’t imagine a life without her. Like, I have no regrets getting her, but yes, corgi shedding is bad. I was excited a couple of years ago when we moved into a bigger house, but now I sometimes think I’d much rather still be living in our old place because it was so much quicker to clean (less floor space).

I guess the good thing is that corgis are small dogs, and it would be worse if they were bigger. That said, I did eventually end up buying a robot vacuum cleaner because I just didn’t have the time to vacuum every day during shedding season. Brushing my corgi helps, but she still sheds a lot too, so I am glad that I made the investment for the robot vacuum.

It took a bit of time to get my corgi used to it though, she absolutely hated it to begin with, lol. Imagine a sassy corgi running and barking after a robot vacuum cleaner. Luckily we had a quick learning curve with some de-sensitisation training and she now happily ignores the vacuum when it’s on.

What kind of brush do you use on a corgi?

In short, you use multiple brushes on a corgi. That’s because you want to ease your corgi into the brushing, so to speak. Some brushes can be pretty scary to our dogs, and the last thing we want is for our corgi to be scared of their brush!

Here’s what worked for me:

Grooming Glove

I started with one of those brush-gloves ($14 on Amazon). But like, I didn’t brush her with it straight away. Maybe you can, but my corgi gets anxious easily, so I always go to extra mile when introducing her to new experiences.

So, what I did was that I’d just hang out on the couch, with the brush glove on. I’d let her approach me and sniff the brush, without attempting to brush her. I literally did that for like 3 days on and off. Again, you might be able to brush your corgi straight away, but mine is so suspicious of new experiences that I need to go slow. Otherwise she’ll just end up scared and I’ll never be able to brush her and I’ll have to live in a house full of corgi glitter, lol.

To summarise, I was basically just getting her used to me wearing that glove, and teaching her that it’s not a bad thing.

Then, once she stopped being suspicious of it, I started petting her with the glove brush on, which was a huge success because she actually liked it.

Pinhead Brush

I did that for a couple of weeks, and then I upgraded to the next brush. Groomers call this brush a Pinhead brush ($16 on Amazon). It’s similar to a hair brush that we humans would use and works well for brushing the top coat and to remove dirt. It’s not typically recommended to remove loose hair, but remember, we’re slowly working our way up here.

So, with this brush, I started to carry it around and have it next to me. Our goal is for our corgi to think of it as a normal, non-threatening object. I’d let her sniff the brush when she was interested and basically just got her used to the brush being around.

After doing this for a couple of days, I started brushing her with it. The most important part for me personally here is to give my corgi a choice. So, when she’s had enough, I’d let her walk away.

I learned this from my dog trainer and I personally really resonate with that approach of training. It’s all about being a good leader to our dogs, rather than dominating them. If you’re a good leader, your dog will want to follow your commands because they want to. If you just dominate your dog, your dog will follow your commands because they’re scared of you. I don’t want my dog to be scared of me.

So, coming back to the pinhead brush. I used that one on my corgi for about a week. I know it might seem annoying for you to take so much time to slowly get your corgi used to brushes, but it really pays off in the long term. It’s a month of training that makes a huge difference on the emotional response to the brushing that your corgi will have for their entire life.

De-Shedding Brush

Now here we are, the final brush we’ll use: A proper de-shedding brush ($33.95 on Amazon). These brushes are specifically built to remove loose hair from our dogs to combat shedding.

By now, my corgi had a neutral/positive response to the new experience of getting brushed, which is good.

I repeated the same behaviour with the new brush. I started to have it around our living room and let my corgi sniff it. With this one, because I didn’t want to take any risks, I’d also start giving my corgi her favourite high-value treats every time she took an interest in the new brush.

Then, once she was comfortable with the brush, I started with short brushing sessions. Like, a couple of minutes every day, because we eventually want to build this up to a full session where we remove as many loose hair as possible. As usual, I gave her the choice to walk away when she’s had enough.

How often do you brush a corgi?

I brush my corgi just twice a week now that I got her used to the proper de-shedding brush I mentioned above.

Once you get started with regularly brushing your corgi, you’ll get a hang of how often you’ll need to brush them pretty quickly. That’s because you notice differences in how much hair are coming out of their fur. Also, they go through shedding periods where they shed way more than normally, so it’s not always the same.

As I’ve mentioned at the start of this article, corgis really are heavy shedders. There’s a lot of loose hair coming out of those small goofballs and it takes some time to adjust to the new normal if you’re a new corgi parent.

Talking about me personally, I now brush my corgi twice a week, and have the robot vacuum cleaner do its rounds every other day. I also came to terms with the fact that my home will never be as clean anymore as it used to, but that’s okay, because it’s filled with so much fun and love now 🙂