Dog Care: Bathing a dog
April 18th, 2009Bathing a dog needs to be done with care, certain areas of the dog’s body needs to be given special attention, for example the ears, if you don’t close the ears with large cotton balls, water might enter into the dog’s ear canals and may cause ear infection. Signs of such infection include constant discharge from the dog’s ears and shaking of head.
Bathing a dog is important but frequency of bathing actually depends on the breed of the dog. If your dog is of a hairy type like the cocker spaniel, then bathing could be carried out once in six to eight weeks. Why take so long you may ask, the answer is simple, if these breed of dogs are bathed too frequently, then the skin and coat loose their protective characters. However, there are exceptions to this rule, if your dog has defecated on his skin due to frequent digestive upsets leading to diarrhea, it is advisable to give him frequent baths as is required at that stage to avoid bad smell.
Take care to avoid using some irritant soaps or human soaps. Soap materials used for human beings are not suitable for dogs. Similarly, many human shampoo products have some ingredients in certain proportions that are not suitable in the proportions that should be used on your dog. Hence, always try to use the shampoo products that are meant mainly for pet use. A lot of care should be taken when using any new products on your dog.
Bathing your dog should be a convenient activity to both you and your dog, make sure you are not in a hurry when you want to give your dog a bath. Ensure you have all you need close at hand with availability of water source, if you are using a bathtub, have everything in one place and then start bathing of the dog. Try to have a leash, conditioner, towel, and shampoo in the bath place as well, the conditioner will make combing activity easier later.