One is a professional brush priced like a tool. The other is a self-cleaning brush priced like an impulse buy. The coat on your dog decides which is the waste of money.
A double row of pins that pulls dead undercoat out instead of brushing the surface of it. The correct tool for the job both slickers are being asked to do badly.
Scores are our own editorial assessment, not a product rating from reviews or testing. We do not print prices — every button goes to the current one on Amazon. #ad
The short answer
The short answer
Buy the Big G if your dog’s coat mats — doodle, poodle, Bichon, Shih Tzu. Pin density is what gets through curl and nothing cheaper substitutes for it. Buy the Hertzko if your dog sheds and you just want loose hair off the surface quickly.
This page is for you if
You are choosing between a professional slicker and a self-cleaning one, and the price gap between them looks hard to justify.
You are on the wrong page if
You have not worked out whether your dog mats or sheds. That decides everything here — start at the coat-type pages, or the brush roundup for the full category map.
What they actually have in common
Both are slickers: a flat or slightly curved head with many fine, bent pins, designed to work through coat and lift what is loose. Both are used the same way, in short strokes with the coat lifted in sections, and both can scratch a dog’s skin if you press down instead of letting the pins travel. Neither of them cuts coat and neither removes a mat that has already felted.
Where they part company is the pin bed — how many pins, how close together, how stiff. Everything else, including the self-cleaning button, is secondary to that.
Where they differ
Chris Christensen Big G
Hertzko self-cleaning
Pin density
About 30% more pins than typical
Fine, angled, less dense
Sizes
Three
One
Cleaning
By hand, with a comb
Retracting pin bed, one press
Reaches the skin on curl
Yes
Not reliably
Best coat
Doodle, poodle, silky, long
Short, double, light shedding
Price class
Professional tool
Impulse purchase
Pin specifications from the manufacturer and review sources cited below; the coat verdicts are this site's own.
The density figure sounds like a marketing line and is not. Think about what a brush does on a curly coat: the pins have to enter the coat, keep tension on the hair while they travel, and come out the other side with the dead hair in them. A sparse bed lets curl slip between the pins, so you work the same patch repeatedly and still leave the layer nearest the skin untouched — which is exactly where the next mat is forming.
Pin spacing is the whole comparison. Curl slips between widely spaced pins; a dense bed keeps hold of it.
The self-cleaning button is not the trap it looks like
It is easy to dismiss the Hertzko’s retracting pin bed as a feature invented for a product listing. It is not. On a heavily shedding dog you genuinely fill a slicker every few strokes, and stopping to pick packed undercoat out of pins by hand is the thing that makes people quit halfway through. One press and a wipe is a real improvement on that.
The honest criticism is different: the dog that needs a self-cleaning brush most — a heavy shedder — is the dog that should be using a rake rather than a slicker in the first place. The button is solving a symptom of using the wrong tool well.
Neither of these takes out a mat that has already set
If you can feel a firm pad of coat against the skin that will not separate under your fingers, a slicker will only pull on it, and pulling on a mat hurts. That is a dematter or a clipper job. See the dematting tools roundup and how to clip matted hair — a badly matted coat sometimes has to come off short, and that is the kind outcome, not the failure.
If you own a doodle, buy pin density and nothing else
Doodle and poodle coat is the one case where this comparison has a flat answer. That coat grows continuously and mats from the skin outward, which means your brush has to reach the skin every week or you are losing ground. The dense bed does that; the cheap one does not, and the money you save is repaid in coat that eventually has to be clipped off short. The doodle coat page has the weekly routine, and line brushing is the technique that makes a dense slicker worth what it costs.
The decision
Pick Big G if
→Your dog has a doodle, poodle, Bichon, Shih Tzu or Maltese coat
→You are brushing weekly and still finding mats at the skin
→You want one brush that lasts years rather than a replacement every season
→You have a standard-sized dog and want the large head to cover ground
Pick Hertzko if
→Your dog sheds and does not mat
→You want loose hair off the surface in five minutes, not a full brush-out
→You will not clean a brush by hand and would rather press a button
→You are buying a first brush and want to spend very little to start
And if the answer to both columns is “sort of”, the reason is that your dog sheds, in which case buy the rake and skip the argument. A rake plus a cheap slicker for finishing covers a shedding dog better than either brush alone, and the rake roundup is where to start.
The picks in full
Every pick, in order
01
Coats that mat: doodle, poodle, silky
Chris Christensen Big G slicker brush
Around 30% more pins than a typical slicker, in three sizes. Pin density is the whole product and on a curly coat it is transformative.
A mat forms at the skin, not at the surface, so the only brush spec that matters is whether the pin bed can get down there and keep tension while it does. A dense bed moves through curl in one pass where a sparse one skates over the top. On a doodle this is the difference between a twenty-minute brush-out and an hour of work that still leaves mats behind, which is why professionals own this and not a cheaper slicker.
Pin density9.5
Reach to skin9.0
Build and longevity9.0
Comfort for the dog8.0
Cleaning6.0
Overall8.8 / 10
What it gets right
+Pin density is the whole product: more pins means fewer passes through a curly coat
+The pins are long enough to reach skin on a doodle, which is where matting starts
+This is the brush that makes line brushing a doodle actually feasible
What it gets wrong
−Expensive for a brush, by a wide margin
−Dense pin bed is harder to clean out than a self-cleaning slicker
−Overkill on a short coat
Who should skip itSkip it if your dog has a short or smooth coat — you will never use the pin density you paid for.
The self-cleaning mechanism is genuinely useful and not a gimmick: on a shedding dog you fill a slicker every thirty seconds, and a press-and-wipe beats picking hair out of pins by hand. The pins are finer and more widely spaced than a professional slicker, which is fine for lifting loose undercoat and debris off a short or double coat. It is not the tool for felted curl.
Pin density6.0
Reach to skin6.5
Build and longevity7.0
Comfort for the dog8.5
Cleaning9.5
Overall7.5 / 10
What it gets right
+The retract button means the brush actually gets emptied, which is why it keeps getting used
+Cheap enough to own two and keep one in the car
+Fine for routine shedding control on most coats
What it gets wrong
−Pin bed is not dense enough for serious doodle work
−Retract mechanism is the part that eventually fails
−Pins bend over time and stop reaching the skin
Who should skip itSkip it if you own a doodle that mats — buy pin density instead of a cleaning button.
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03
If your dog sheds rather than mats, buy neither
JW Pet Gripsoft double-row undercoat rake
A double row of pins that pulls dead undercoat out instead of brushing the surface of it. The correct tool for the job both slickers are being asked to do badly.
Double-row pin undercoat rake
Rows
Two rows of rounded pins
Pins
Rounded ends, not blades
Handle
Gripsoft non-slip
Most people comparing slickers for a shedding dog are comparing the wrong category. A slicker works the top few millimetres of coat; a rake reaches through the guard hairs and lifts the dead undercoat that is actually ending up on the sofa. If your dog is a Husky, Samoyed, German Shepherd or Golden, this costs less than either brush above and does ten times more.
Undercoat removal9.0
Reach to skin9.0
Build and longevity8.0
Comfort for the dog8.0
Value9.5
Overall8.7 / 10
What it gets right
+Rounded pins, not blades — you cannot cut the coat with it, which makes it the safe default
+Double row doubles the undercoat it lifts per stroke
+Cheap enough to be nobody's agonizing decision
What it gets wrong
−Slower than a bladed tool on a heavy shed
−Pins will not open a set mat
−Handle is comfortable but the head is small for a giant breed
Who should skip itSkip it if you need to clear a felted mat — pins ride over it; you need a dematter.
On a coat that mats, yes — the extra pin density is the feature, and it reaches the layer at the skin where mats start. On a short or smooth coat you will never use what you paid for, and a cheap slicker or a rubber curry does the same job.
+−Are self-cleaning slicker brushes any good?
For shedding dogs, yes. The retracting bed saves real time when you are emptying the brush every few strokes. The pins are finer and more widely spaced than a professional slicker, though, so it is the wrong choice for curly coat that mats.
+−Which slicker brush size should I buy?
Match the head to the dog, not to your hand: a large head on a small dog cannot work a face or a leg, and a small head on a standard poodle turns a brush-out into an afternoon. If you own both sizes of dog, the medium is the compromise that annoys you least.
+−How often should I use a slicker brush?
Weekly at minimum on any coat that grows, and more often in coat-change season on a shedding dog. The cadence by coat type is on the grooming schedule page.
How this page was put together
We define the coat problem the tool has to solve, shortlist products currently sold, compare the manufacturers’ documented specifications against what that coat actually needs, and cross-check against published findings from named sources. We do not test these tools on our own dogs under controlled conditions, and we will not say we do. Where a figure comes from a manufacturer, we name them; where it comes from someone else’s testing, we cite them. We print no prices — a stale number is worse than none. Read the full method.
