spayed bitch, dull coat.

[julie1]

Kez was spayed at 6 months (vets recommendation) she is now one year old.   She does have one cod-liver-oil capsule per day (because I have always given it to my other dogs, retrievers) also she offten has ONE small sardine in olive oil, her coat is very soft but dull, (in fact it feels 'dead' and she has never really moulted)  it also gets a lot of "cotters" recently, even though I comb her through every day.    I have cut the hair under her front armpits, behind her ears and under her tummy very short to try to help with this; she still has a nice feathering that I thin with thinning scissors.
Please is there anything else I can do to help with the "cotters" & condition of her coat (I forgot to mention that I spray her with conditioner if her coat is knotted).

[Jane S]

Spaying often does often result in a soft, cotton-wool texture coat which does matt up more easily (some coats are affected worse than others). I give all our dogs Evening Primrose oil and Salmon oil and this helps even the spayed girls' coats. Others get good results using Yumega. Apart from that, there's not much you can do apart from routine daily grooming to get any tangles out and thinning out/shortening the feathering to make it more manageable.

[supergirl]

I have a similar problem with Misha (Liver with tan) - since being spayed her coat is very wooly and obviously clipping has made it worse.  Her skirts and feathers though are great so we're hanging onto those while we can.  She also has evening primrose oil and salmon oil but alas no shine really. The plus side is that she doesn't moult.  However it does work very well for Lexi (also spayed) and Ellie (also spayed), but I wonder if this is because they have a lot of black in their coats. 

I remember reading somewhere about human hair, in that certain colours reflect the light more and give the appearance of being shiny, and would think this is probably the same for cockers.