Dog Grooming

Dog Grooming

1. Most people often assume that dogs need to be washed on a regular basis with a shampoo bath. This can be somewhat harmful to your dog because dogs need some oils on their skin to protect them and their undercoats.  Now, dogs sometimes can get pretty stinky and pretty dirty. So occasionally a shampoo bath is a necessity. Depending on how smelly or dirty your dog is, it might be that your dog only needs what we consider a deodorizer bath. Now this kind of bath is typically an outside shower with a garden hose and a very limited amount of shampoo just to knock off the smells. Another bath that the dog might need is when they get really dirty or they just really stink, like when they rolled in the remnants of a dead animal. In those cases, a full bath or shower using dog friendly deodorizer shampoo is a must. However, it is still only recommended that dogs get shampooed every couple of months, perhaps twice a year.
   
   
2. Most people don't have the ability to wash a dog inside their house during cold weather or cool weather months, or even during the summer. An idea to counter this problem is to see if you have a faucet (like in a utility room or a utility sink) that has the ability to take off the tip of the faucet and replace it with a garden hose adapter that threads onto the end of the faucet. These are often available at a hardware store. Now to get the water from your utility sink inside your house to your dog outside your house, we found it very easy to get a stainless steel flexible short hose that can run to your outside location from your sink. Screw it onto your garden hose adapter on your utility sink faucet then put a nozzle on the end of the hose. We leave the faucet sprayer on at the end of the hose off while turning on the warm water at the sink to let the water warm up enough to be comfortable for your dog. To keep your hose from wiggling too much while you are waiting for it to warm up, we put our hose-end sprayer (cylindrical hose attachment sprayer) inside a fixed open pvc pipe as a temporary holder.
   
   
3. One of the most dreaded dog grooming tasks that most dog owners face is the trimming of toenails.  After we learned through many experiences with using toenail clippers for dogs and cutting off too much of the quick, this has led to bloody carpets and a real mess.  Remember that just like human fingers and toes, dog’s toes will bleed for a long time as it takes a long time for the dog’s blood to coagulate at the quicks.  So it's best to trim the dog's toes in a manner that will eliminate the possibility of cutting the quick of the dog's toenails.  To avoid cutting the quicks with nail clippers, we found it much easier to use a Dremel™ tool with a sanding wheel attachment.  Now this will take some time for most dogs to adjust as the Dremel™ tool makes a bit of a whining sound with the motor.  The sanding wheel will tickle the dog's toes when it comes in contact.  To allow for the dog to adjust to these sensations, we find it much better to turn on and off the Dremel™ tool several times without touching the dog's toes at first.  After a few times of doing this, perhaps once a day for a few days or even a week, then eventually tap the dog's toenails with the spinning Dremel™ tool sanding wheel.  This will allow the dog to get comfortable and familiar with this vibration sensation the tool will create on the dog's toes.  After doing this for a few seconds at a time, perhaps once a day for a few days or even up to a week, the dog should slowly acclimate to the sensation and allow you to actually start trimming the toenails with very little hesitation.  The dog's natural reflex will be to pull the paw away from your tool as the tickling sensation will cause this at first.  We found that this sensation and this reflex generally goes away and slowly the dog will become very used to it.  It is always a good idea to use the reward system to give the dog when they accept the use of the tool on their toes successfully.  Our dogs now enjoy this experience and always know it ends with a treat.
   
   
4. For dogs that have hair or fur that needs to be brushed, there are several options for dog brushes. We have found that using brushes with stainless steel bent-tipped bristles is much better than brushes with plastic bristles or bristles with tips on them as they generally don't get into the undercoat, which is where most brushing is needed. Using a steel comb is very helpful to clean out the hair or fur from the brush. Remember to brush your dog about once a month to keep them from matting their undercoats. Also remember that undercoats sometimes insulate your dog from both extreme heat and cold. Best to research your dog breed to see recommendations for brushing frequencies.