Giving a Dog a Bath

Tea tree, or Melaleuca alternifolia oil, does have toxic potential, depending on the circumstances of exposure. Clinical effects that may occur following dermal exposure to significant amounts of tea tree oil include loss of coordination, muscle weakness, depression, and possibly even a severe drop in body temperature, collapse and liver damage. If the oil is ingested, potential effects include vomiting, diarrhea and, in some cases, seizures. If inhalation of the oil occurs, aspiration pneumonia is possible. Read more here...

No Store Bought Treats

She now gets only human treats. I usually by her a bag of honey turkey, that costs .75 cents at my store. I never give her any human food that is wheat or bread or corn in nature. She eats Pedigree dry dog food, and it seems to be doing well for her. There are other better foods out there, like Authority, Pro Plan, Blue Buffalo.

No Topical Flea Treatments

She takes a Comfortis tablet once a month, or whenever she seems to need it. It seems to work more than a month at a time, although it is supposed to be given once a month.

Dawn and Tea Tree Oil Bath

The unhealthy buildup on her coat is gone. These baths help her skin to breathe and kills any kind of yeast and the tea tree oil is like an antiseptic also.

Ingredients

• Tea tree oil from Walgreens or pharmacy. It must be in a dark bottle.
• Dawn dishwashing soap (the blue kind)
• Plastic cup, large size to mix up the oil and Dawn and water in.

Directions

Put a capfull of the tea tree oil in plastic cup. Notice I said capfull and not cup-full. Add to that about 1/4 cup of Dawn diswashing liquid, the blue original kind. No need to be exact. I go by how high it fills the cup. I put about an inch to an inch and a half high of Dawn in the cup. Wiggle the cup around a little to mix the two ingredients. Set aside where it will not be spilled.

After wetting Dutchess' coat very, very, very good with warm water and making sure she is sopping wet, fill up the Solo cup halfway with water that already has the Dawn and oil mixture.

Stir it really well with your fingers, mixing the tea tree oil and the Dawn. Then fill it up the rest of the way. Mix again with fingers. I pour the contents of the plastic cup onto a very wet Dutchess coat and lather into a rich lather.

If the dog's coat does not lather, even though it is sopping wet, make up another bunch and use it until you know it is on the dog's coat deep down to the skin and rubbed in, gently.

Only if the dog is wet, will it lather up really easy. Make sure to get the legs. The stomach is important too. Also don't forget to rinse the stomach and chest area. These areas might not lather up as much as the back but it is still doing a good job for those areas.

I always let the solution stay on Dutchess for about three to five minutes. It really doesn't matter, just try to let it stay on there at least a minute or two. I use this time to praise her and tell her how good she is doing.

When it is rinsing time, don't ever spray the face or facial area with water or get soap or anything on the face. If you get soap on the face, wipe it off with a dripping washrag. Rinsing does not mean going over once with the shower head attachment. Rinsing means adding a little bit of water, and lathering up the soap that is already on her, and then rinsing and rinsing and more rinsing.

This is what gets all the dead and gross stuff off the skin. A well rinsed dog is a happy dog. If the soap stays on the skin, it will turn into muck, attract dirt and cause problems by matting up and not letting the skin get air to breathe.

I then get a nice bath cloth and squeeze it out slightly. I wash Dutchess' face with this and go over the rims of her ears. This is where she needs it the most. I had put some of the bathwater on her ears and her face before and now I just wipe it off with a wash cloth a few times.

I put a towel or my robe on the floor and call her out of the tub. She shakes and we go outside and take pictures. She is smiling in one of them. She knows we will either go on a car ride and get a human grade treat or go to the park and walk around in the warm sun.

Here is Dutchess on the patio in a towel, smiling with the few teeth she has left after 10 years. This is my favorite picture of her!

By Robyn Fed from Tri-Cities, TN

I've always given my dogs 2-3 weeks before bathing them again...unless they roll in something of course.
also to help their skin bounce back from losing the natural oils they need and to neutralize the wet dog smell use vinegar and water rinse. i do 2part vinegar 1 part water. remember to give them a slight rinse after using the vinegar.

I have two dogs that love to swim. I throw a stick for them in the lake and get them nice and wet. Then I lather them up with dog shampoo and throw the stick in the lake to get them rinsed. There you have any easy dog bath.

By christine rogalski

I am a dog groomer. My best tip is to use baby shampoo on your pets face. It is tearless and you can give the face a good scrubbing.

edie

I give my dogs a bath in the shower. They love the massage setting on the shower head, which is a handheld, so I can get the water into their fur and make sure I get all the soap out. Also, when they shake off, they don't get the entire room wet, just the shower. Then we towel off in there and they run around like crazy all over the house. During flea season I use the tub and fill it up so my little dog is mostly underwater except his head and part of his neck. I tell them to "sit" for a minute or two in the water after they are cleaned up. This drowns any fleas that may be on them. The fleas float off and I scoop them out into a cup and just pour them back in when I let the water out of the tub.

Sure wish I had a lake handy! That sounds easy and fun for the dogs! I tried washing my two long-haired dachshunds in the shower, but they shed so much, all the hair in the tub really grossed me out. So it's the basement laundry tubs for us! Tearless shampoo is great and I also apply a sweet smelling conditioner which helps untangle their coats.

Sorry to be a party pooper, but sending a dog lathered with soap into a local lake is really bad for the lake, i.e. fish, plants, balance of water, etc.

Soap is very bad for the wildlife who depend on the lake for survival. Soapy water should always go down a drain that is sent to a water treatment plant.

After shampooing with shampoo formulated for canines, rinse with a 4:1 solution of water and vinegar to ensure a soft, shiny, and throughly rinsed coat. Bathtime for Zoey, my 9 year old beagle, is completed with a special treat of rosemary tea rinse. Using 2-3 Tablespoons of rosemary leaves in a bowl, I add as many cups of boiling water to steep for 10-15 minutes. When cool enough to handle, pour off the resulting tea into a recycled dish liquid dispenser. (I use a recycled funnel from a 2 liter beverage bottle). Be certain the solution is not too warm for your dog!

If you need a batch in a hurry, use less boiling water, and use several ice cubes to more rapidly cool the solution after steeping. The sweet aroma and soothing properties make this a great final leave-in rinse.

By Flynnzie

Great way to apply shampoo or conditioner is to use a spray bottle. 50/50 of water and shampoo or conditioner and then simply spritz it on and lather. Much more economical (You waste less shampoo then drizzling down the back) and it's easier to work down to the skin for double coated breeds.

Well, I do my pup in the kitchen sink. She's really tiny and then I don't have to bend. We both get a bath. Then I just give the sink a good scrub. It really is easier on both of us I think, I don't get all frustrated with her trying to climb out of a bath tub and flooding the bathroom and she can see all around since the kitchen sink is shallow. I think she feels safer. My daughter tried the tub and said little Molly was nuts. Then we have a game with catch the dog with the hairdryer. She runs around getting nutty while I try to get just a little warm air on her. Finally we're done and both ready for a nap.

How would you like to have to smell vinegar on you after you take a bath? It smells no better to them than it does to you!

Once the dog drys, you don't smell the vinegar.

Frequently, rescue dogs don't know how to play. We have one who went from zero play to bringing us his Frisbee, stuffed animals, chew bone, etc. at the drop of a hat later on.
You are going to have to teach him how to play. I don't have any suggestions as how to go about doing this, because I sincerely can't recall what we did all those years ago.
If there is a person with whom the dog identifies, this individual should be the one to attempt play time.
Considering the rescue status, try one person at a time rather than the whole family trying to help all at once. The former is more calming and the latter will put the pooch on unrelaxed guard duty.

Good advice from the previous post. I also recommend teach your dog to "tug". It's a natural instinct and he'll catch on quickly. Our rescue did not know how to tug, but now it's her main play activity. It is encouraged in agility training because it builds front end muscle for jumps, etc. It also gets them fired up with the "drive" required to do the obstacle courses. A big dog requires a big, strong tug, but sometimes different things are not comfortable in their mouth. I started with a soft furry one I made. Wiggle it around on the floor in front of the dog, he'll probably naturally give chase and then grab it. That's when you tug gently on it, even put your hand on his chest to encourage backward movement. Keep trying, it will happen. I have no good advice on the bath, hopefully someone else will post suggestions.

Don't know if this will work for you, but this sure worked for our scaredy cat. We've had our dog since she was 3 months old (she's 4 now) and she was always terrified of baths, just the word would send her cowering! She's never been abused, but she acts like it.

This summer I got one of those things (at Walmart) that is a hand-held scrubber that you can put the soap inside (I water it down). It has rubber bumps on it, and when you push the button, the soap comes out onto the dog and you can massage them as you bathe them. They say to just use it in the direction the hair grows, but I used it to rub her all over back and forth.

Well, as usual, she trembled and peed all over herself in the tub as if I was going to beat her - at first. By halfway through the bath, she was so relaxed and happy she was nearly asleep! Ever since then, she still cowers if I say the word, but she isn't afraid when I give her a bath. I even caught her in the driveway one hot day after she'd been playing outside and gave her a bath with the hose and scrubber. She sat there with her eyes closed, enjoying every minute of it!

Maybe it's old owners nearly drowned your dog.

Try adding some baking soda to his bath water next time. That should make him smell fresh.

Once when our pooch got skunked and nothing worked, the vet's office suggested we wash her with warm water and baking soda as gritssisters suggested and then take diluted downy fabric softener and put on her and let sit for 15 minutes (it was almost impossible to get her to sit for that long but she lasted at least 10) then rinse. It did kill the odor and she was a breeze to comb out. Wondering if it may work for this too.

Would tomato juice work? They say it removes skunk odor. Good luck!

First clean dog with vinegar and water solution then shampoo iwth people shampoo. Please be careful not to get vinegar solution in his eyes. People shampoo is stronger than dog shampoo. The vinegar solution should work well. To make a gallon for future use get gallon jug 3/4 cup vinegar and the rest water, shake well. Deby