Hair today, gone tomorrow

Is it normal for dogs to moult all year round? I thought it was usually a twice-yearly occurrence, but my Labrador, Shadow, moults constantly. Sometimes it just comes out in clumps and when he shakes there is always a shower of hair. I brush him regularly and his coat is shampooed once a month, neither of which seems to make any difference to his hair loss. Is there anything I can do to slow down the moulting?
Jane Baxter

I am in exactly the same situation myself with my Labrador. Although she does not moult all the time, it does seem as if I have barely heaved a sigh of relief at the end of a heavy moult before I start finding huge piles of fur accumulating once more in the corners of the kitchen and hall, together with retrieving huge amounts of dead fur at grooming. What a shame the wild birds are not nest-building all-year-round!
I had thought that having a Labrador would be much easier than the situation with the border collies of my childhood. When they were moulting, they would readily yield a carrier bag of fur at a single grooming, and the same again the next day and the day after that. Labrador fur may be shorter than a border collie’s, but it is much finer and spreads to the edges of rooms with smooth floors (for example, tiled or floor-boards) where it collects in a tell-tale fashion. No skipping the vacuuming when Pippin is moulting!
My clients often ask me about this apparent all-year-round shedding. Generally, we do not allow a seasonal variation in temperature within the home. Instead, we strive to maintain a temperature which is warm enough in winter to enable us to remove outer layers (coat, hat, gloves), then cool enough in summer to offer respite from high external temperatures (except in East Anglia in past summers!). Additionally, there can be extreme fluctuations on a daily basis, given the UK’s highly variable climate. Dogs cannot remove or add layers at will so they end up very confused if living indoors.
Dogs living outside in kennels will grow a thick winter coat which is shed in the spring in favour of a lighter coat for the summer.
We are being told to turn down the thermostat on our central heating by one degree to help ease global warming. I suspect this will not be enough to lessen your dog’s rate of moulting!
Constantly moulting may well be affecting the quality of your dog’s coat, so it would be worth trying adding evening primrose oil to his food. On the plus side, provided he enjoys being groomed then you have the ideal excuse and opportunity for close contact and quality time together.
Alison Logan, vet