Dog Bath
Irradiated by LabRat
Starting materials: one large dog in the process of blowing coat. Shedding blade. Undercoat rake. One standard-sized shower. Pretentious dog shampoo with mysterious botanicals.
1. Take dog outside. Allow her to run around like a loon for a few minutes. Apply combination of blade and rake until your arm falls off, dog completely loses patience, or heat death of the universe. All of these things are more likely to occur before you have successfully removed all undercoat. Repeat cycle as often as can be refreshed. End when human completely loses patience.
2. Remove clothing, there’s no point in even attempting to just use old clothes for this as by the end all involved humans will need a change of clothes and a bath themselves.
3. Herd reluctant-but-obedient dog into shower. Begin manipulating showerhead to cover as many possible angles of dog as possible. Comfort dog, who is frantically licking the walls in hopes of dissolving them and escaping to freedom. Optional: invent a “window-licker” song.
4. Apply shampoo (now with “neem”) to back of dog. Massage shampoo fully into coat. Pause frequently to remove the thick scum of mingled shampoo and loose fur from your hands. Realize there is, in fact, no good place to put it.
5. Attempt to remove shampoo from the dog’s coat. This process will always take at least three times as long as you remember it taking the last time, especially because a substantial amount of coat is also being removed and is slowing down the whole process. Make a note to self to pitch dog hair as an erosion-control method to the laboratory’s environmental division.
6. Once the dog’s fur feels like normal, non-slimy wet fur again and no longer foams, remove as much fur from yourself as possible. Quickly give this up as a bad job as it becomes apparent this will not be possible until the dog has been removed.
7. Release dog from shower. Towel dog. Release dog into the area the first few shakes will do the least damage, as towel-drying has had roughly the same effect of attempting to stop a flood with a squeegee. Discard furred, soaking ruin of towel into empty laundry hamper. Leave dog to towel herself off on the carpet.
8. Attempt to remove as much fur from shower and self as possible. Take a real shower, with a shampoo that has no “neem”.
9. Once dog has air-dried, return to step one and brush dog.
End result: dog, still blowing coat like a dandelion gone to seed. House, completely covered in former coat. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks.
January 20th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
That’s what you get for having a fluffy dog, although my labs are no slouches in the cover-the-house-in-fur department.
Of course, my two idiots are water dogs that hate getting wet, but I blame their upbringing on that.
January 20th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Try adding water to the shampoo, a 50:50 mix.
It’s easier rinse out.
Using clippers on the dog would not solve the hair problem
January 20th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Yeah, no, I’m never clippering down either of mine. Not only are shaved Akitas RIDICULOUS looking, a thick double coat like that doesn’t always grow back right afterward.
January 20th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
I’m suddenly feeling much better about the amount of hair I have to clean up from my two fairly-short-haired dogs.
January 20th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
I am also think a bit more fondly of our two golden retrievers. At least its a, mostly, constant shed a person can grow used to.
January 20th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
[who is going to bed, before more grammatical fail is loosed from his keyboard]
January 20th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Ah, the blowing of the coat. That time of year when sometimes only the rate at which it is moving distinguishes the actual malamute from the piles of fur around the house.
Oh, yes, the birds love malamute / husky / akita / etc. coat blow. The cat, who cannot shed enough to keep up, does not.
Followed by the hungry eyes of “But I’m starving! I spent all my energy growing fur just for you!” And the loving-leg-lean of depositing more clumps of fur from the just-brushed-last-night dog onto your slacks from hip to boot, right before you head to work.
January 21st, 2011 at 12:05 am
Mah kitteh takes care of this all by hisself. Right now, he is in Winter-coat mode. In a few months he will start to shed, and the sheddings will be in his stomach, and then he will hork them up in neat wet lumps with no aerial fur problem. It is all part of his Maineish Coonlyness.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:09 am
Remind me, when I start looking for a dog, to get a breed that doesn’t blow its coat…
January 21st, 2011 at 7:03 am
LOL- Been there, screwed that up… Was stupid, wore clothes, dog jumped out of the shower and hauled butt, shaking water and hair all over the house. Had to get the plumber to come out and ‘extract’ the hair ball from the shower drain. Finally got all the soap out of his coat outside (in 40 deg wx). Dog still shed so badly I also ended up ruining a vacuum cleaner trying to ‘keep up’ with the shedding… sigh… But he was a GOOD dog! Thanks for the memory/nightmare!
January 21st, 2011 at 9:18 am
HA HA. At least my bxer will get in the shower when I tell it to. Try washing a cat someday without wearing stainless steel gloves. LOL.
January 21st, 2011 at 9:46 am
The day I decided to just strip down and climb in the tub with my dog was a real revelation. So much easier that way. Of course, that still only moved the needle down to “extremely onerous undertaking.”
January 21st, 2011 at 9:54 am
But… it’s January! Why are they shedding now? Won’t they get cold?
January 21st, 2011 at 10:08 am
My dogs were knee-height, so a little easier to handle. But the process was similar. The last step was allow them to run outside to finish air drying. Then, of course, they’d roll in the grass! Re: cat washing. Had a short-haired calico who rolled in automotive grease in the carport. Had to hold her by the nape, so she’d ‘kitten-out’, to be shampooed with the free hand. All the while serenaded with cat growls. Then wife was ready with thick towel to towel her off, quickly, before she’d go hide for a day.
January 21st, 2011 at 10:53 am
JohnnyGee, that reminds me, the Siamese is due for a bath. I need to confirm that we have enough band aids and super glue to close up all the wounds.
January 21st, 2011 at 11:43 am
Wing and JtG- oh, it gets better. The cat is *eating* some of the clumps of shed-out coat, and then.. hairballs. So he gets to make the mess that makes me curse more, which satisfies him.
Perl- coat blows are supposed to be spring seasonal, but ours have never followed any rhyme or reason whatsoever; they don’t shed out at the same time, and when they do it seems random except that it’s around twice a year. It does seem to impact their ability to happily hang out in freezing weather, but not by as much as you’d think.
Cats- I’ve done the cat-bath thing. When I was a kid we had asparagus ferns out front, and two cats that, when they chose to try and escape the house, would bolt into them. Something of the nature of the ferns required a bath each and every time they did…
January 21st, 2011 at 1:20 pm
1st dog myth: they only blow their coat twice a year *Myth busted by my 3 corgi’s…who blow their coat every 15 minutes
2nd dog myth: puppies mature and settle down after age 2. *Myth busted by my 3 corgi’s who still act like idiots at ages 15, 11 and 8!
January 21st, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I have it on pretty good authority that doggy shampoo works better than you might think on your own hair.
Jim
January 21st, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Oh, it does. I found that out by accident because I’m blind in the shower and the doggie shampoo lives pretty much where the people shampoo does. It’s just WAY TOO EXPENSIVE to use all the time…
January 21st, 2011 at 5:25 pm
I have a prissy little Shi Tzu inherited from my mother. He insists on having his hair brushed 100 strokes every evening. I don’t even want to talk about dog hair.
OTOH, my SIL has 3 utterly gorgeous, fluffy white, persian cats. They escaped into the garage once while my brother was changing the oil in the car and all 3 bathed, yes, bathed, in the nice warm and very dirty old oil. Did I mention they are white? My SIL’s living room used to match the cats, white carpet, walls, and sofas with blue touches. Not so much anymore.
January 21st, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Heh. I use Nature’s Specialities Hi-Con Dirty Dog on all of us: dogs, horses, and myself. You dilute it 30-to-1.
January 22nd, 2011 at 9:54 am
This makes me oh so grateful for my short coated dogs. However, I have had the singularly unique experience of washing Rain-X off of a very angry cat. My then-four-year-old was quietly entertaining himself in the next room while I was getting some work done on my computer, when the cat streaked in looking *spiky*. My son followed, giggling madly. It seemed that my boyfriend at the time had applied Rain-X to my car’s windshield, and rather than putting the bottle away, he left it on my table before going home. I didn’t notice….but my son did! (To be fair, I think my son thought it was a water bottle…not that chasing the cat relentlessly with a water sprayer is THAT much better…).
Let me tell you with full authority that Rain-X’s water repellent qualities also apply to cat fur. The water beaded right up and rolled off the cat. It took several applications of shampoo to de-slick the cat. The cat was angry for *days*.
January 22nd, 2011 at 4:52 pm
our local Petco store has a do it your self dog bath. Worth the $10 to avoid the clean up and the tub is waist height so the only back aggravation is lift a 50 pound dog that does not want to walk up the ramp. She will run down it, just not up it.
Last time I took her we were in line to pay and she reached over and grabbed a doggie biscuit out of a display that was nicely placed at her height.
January 23rd, 2011 at 10:42 am
Lovely distracting technique: squeeze several lines of shaving cheese (the stuff in the squirty can) onto the shower walls, and doggie will merrily lick it off for a while, sort of forgetting the other trauma going on in the room. Or, hopefully.
Sounds like a messy job. Such beautiful dogs, though. I know it pays off. How often do you have to repeat this while the coat is blowing?
January 23rd, 2011 at 7:23 pm
I usually washed my dog in the backyard, but I did try the shower technique in the winter. Then a dog wash opened in my town. It’s kinda like a car wash, but inside. They have elevated tubs that you lead the dog into and then use a spray nozzle to wash the dog. The machine even dispenses shampoo if you don’t have your own.
Photos here: http://www.godogwash.biz/photo.htm
The dog always liked going for a ride, and when she shook all that water off her, it was in somebody else’s house!!
January 23rd, 2011 at 8:20 pm
One word for you:
Furminator.
Our Akita and Chow-Chow are alive after yet another coat-blowing season thanks to this wonderful device. I used to use all the other stuff- Mrs. Price is a veterinarian- and this one works where the rest do not.
January 23rd, 2011 at 8:50 pm
We weren’t using a Furminator because it can tear up that standoff double coat- the longer outer guard hairs- and ruin her fluffy show look.
However, she is now no longer showing…
January 26th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Why would you need to invent a window licker song?
Aphex Twin already has you covered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fmo1Sjn7dg
Ok, yes, the track is freaking weird and the video is disturbing. What else would you expect from British techno?