Best Dog Brushes for Long Hair of 2026

Start with the size. This tool is built for dogs over fifty pounds, and the broad blade head and full-size handle make that obvious the moment you pick it up. On a shepherd, a malamute, or a big golden it feels right; on a twenty-pound spaniel it feels like a shovel. If your long-haired dog is small, one of the slickers here is the better buy.

On a big dog in season, nothing here strips loose undercoat faster. The blade runs beneath the topcoat, the FUREJECTOR button pushes the collected strip off in one motion, and a single pass over a hindquarter can fill the head. We used it about once a week rather than daily, which is the pace it is built for, and it made the difference between a house with dog hair in it and a house with dog hair on everything.

The fine print matters. The blade is designed to reach undercoat without cutting the topcoat when it is used as directed: light pressure, short strokes in the direction of the coat, and no repeated digging at one spot. It is also not a detangler — on a matted coat there is nothing for the blade to catch, so the mats come out first with a rake or a comb.

The metal body feels substantial and the handle sits well for the long, even strokes this tool rewards, which is more than we can say for the plastic-bodied brushes in this guide. It is a specialist, and the coat it is built for is the one that fills your vacuum cleaner.

What separates this slicker from everything else here is the pin field. The pad carries roughly a third more pins than a standard slicker, each one angled and set into a flexible cushion, and the effect on a dense coat is immediate: fewer strokes, less bouncing over the surface, and a brush that keeps working when it meets a knot instead of skidding off it.

That density is why doodle and poodle people swear by it. On a curly or cottony coat, fine knots sit close to the skin where a sparse brush never reaches; the long angled pins flex into the coat, open the knot, and leave the hair standing up instead of flattened. We also liked it on finer long coats, where it lifts loose hair without pulling.

It is the most expensive brush in this guide, and after a few weeks with it the premium makes sense: a doodle coat brushed with this several times a week stays ahead of matting, and the denser pin field is a large part of why. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on the coat — on a doodle with a history of shave-downs, yes; on anything short, this is not the conversation.

Where it does not help is a coat already matted to the skin. A slicker opens knots; it does not break a solid mat, and starting with one on a tight mat is how a dog learns to hate being brushed. Work those out with a comb first, then finish with this.

Three tools arrive in one box: a double-sided rake, a self-cleaning slicker, and a flea comb. If you have just brought home a long-haired puppy and do not yet know what its adult coat will demand, this is the least expensive way to have the right tool on hand when you find out.

The rake does most of the work. The nine-tooth side is built to open knots, the seventeen-tooth side to pull the loosened undercoat, and between them they handle what our standalone rake picks handle. The slicker is the finishing step — push the back, the bristles retract, the hair lifts off — and it leaves the coat smooth enough to live with.

The tools themselves are light, the retraction mechanism works cleanly, and the two-year warranty is a real vote of confidence at this price. Nothing in the box feels like it will fall apart in a season.

As a set for someone starting out, it is the best value here — three tools that cover a full routine for less than one of our single-purpose picks. You will not mistake any of them for the pro-grade brushes in this guide, but you also will not be shopping for a second brush next month.

There are two sides to this rake, and we reach for the nine-tooth one first. Wide-spaced teeth get under a knot behind an ear or a mat forming at the base of the tail and lift it without dragging half the coat along with it. The second side then combs through what is left and pulls the loosened undercoat out in tufts.

For the money, nothing here pulls more undercoat per stroke. The teeth are sharpened but rounded at the tips, so the rake gets down to the skin without scratching it, and the dogs we tried it on leaned into it the way they lean into a good scratch. On a lab or a shepherd in season, ten minutes fills the head more than once.

The places to slow down are the thin-skinned ones — armpits, the inside of a back leg, the skin over the ribs. Short strokes that follow the coat work better there than any amount of pressure, and a mat comes apart more easily from its edge than from the middle. The rubberized handle and the four-ounce weight mean a long session does not wear out your hand.

It is the tool we hand someone who has just realized how much undercoat a long-haired dog carries and does not want to spend much finding out. The coat will not look finished afterward — that is a slicker's job — but the hair that would have been on your floor is in the bin.

This is not a brush in the usual sense. It is a curved blade with fine teeth that catches the tips of loose hair and pulls it free, and because there is no pin pad, nothing clogs and nothing scrapes. That is what makes it the tool we hand a dog that has learned to walk away from brushing: the pressure it needs is lighter than it looks, and it does not tug at a knot the way a slicker can.

Technique is simple — short strokes in the direction of the coat, blade almost flat, no pressing. On a thick coat it takes several passes over the same patch before you see the payoff, and then the hair comes off in a felt-like strip you can peel away in one piece. We also ran it over the car seat afterward, which is half of why it stays within reach.

Where it runs out of road is tangles. A blade grabs loose hair; it does not open a knot, and on a matted coat it skates over the top. So treat it as a shedding tool rather than a detangler, and let a slicker go through first on a coat that has had a few days of burrs and weather in it.

The button is the feature. Push it, the bristles retract into the head, and the fur that was wound through them sits on a flat surface and lifts away in one piece. Cleanup takes a couple of seconds, and that is the reason this brush is here instead of a plainer slicker that grooms just as well.

In the coat, the fine angled bristles do a good job on a medium-length coat — an Aussie, a border collie, a golden mix — lifting loose hair and leaving the topcoat smooth. The head is light and the grip comfortable enough to keep going through a whole dog. It is not a tool for the bottom of a dense double coat, though; the bristles are shorter than the pins on our top pick, so on a malamute in season it works the surface rather than the undercoat.

For upkeep between proper grooming sessions, it is the easiest brush here to live with, and it is priced like a simple tool rather than a pro-grade one. If your long-haired dog tolerates brushing but you do not do it as often as you should, the two-second cleanup is what will make you do it.

Most brushes finish when the coat looks smooth. This set keeps going: a double-sided rake for the undercoat, and a metal comb to run through afterward and find the mats you missed.

The rake has a wide side for opening knots and a dense side for pulling loose hair, with teeth long enough to get under a long coat rather than skate across it. The comb is the more interesting half — wide teeth for smoothing, close teeth for lifting what is left — and running it through after the rake is the fastest way to learn where a coat is actually tangled.

In use it is gentle enough for a dog that does not love being brushed. The teeth are finished with a protective edge, the TPR handle stays comfortable through a long session, and both tools rinse clean under the faucet.

Where the set earns its place in a long-haired household is on mats: a mat in a doodle or a spaniel is usually loose undercoat tangled into topcoat, and the rake opens it while the comb confirms it is gone. That back-and-forth without putting one tool down and picking up another is the difference between a grooming session you finish and one you abandon.