If you own a dog then you know the importance of bathing your dog and how difficult such a seemingly simple task can be. The average dog should be bathed at least once a month. If you neglect to bathe your dog, they can smell and develop bad skin and coat conditions.
First you should brush out your dogs coat; this will help to remove some of the dirt and mats out of their fur. If you try to bathe them with the mats still in their coat, this will only make them become more matted.
Fill your bath tub with comfortably warm water. Make sure that the water is not too cold or too warm. You should check the temperature of the tubs water a few times throughout the bath. Make sure that you don’t plug the bath tub drain while you are bathing your dog, you will also want to repeatedly check the drain for hairs that will clog it.
Once you have the tub filled with a water of the appropriate temperature, put your dog into the tub. You can wet his coat with a spray hose or you can use a large drinking cup. You will want to make sure your dogs coat is thoroughly wet; this can be difficult with some breeds of dogs.
Now use a dog shampoo of your choosing, lather the shampoo in, starting from the dogs head down as far as you can go until you reach the water. Rinse the dog off; be sure to keep the shampoo out of your dog’s eyes. You can do this by cupping your hand on your dog’s forehead as you are carefully rinsing their head off. Make sure to rinse all of the shampoo out of your dog’s coat. Keep your dog from drinking the water out of the bath tub.
Now that you have washed the upper half of the dog, lift each leg and wash it. When they put their legs back down into the tub water, this will help to rinse the shampoo off of their legs. You will also want to rinse their legs one final time before getting them out of the tub by turning off the water and allowing it to drain out of the tub. Take the cup and rinse a final time.
You can use your hands and push a lot of the excess water out of the coat by gently pushing down and moving your hands the length of your dog, start from the neck and work your way down.
Now take a big towel and drape it over your dog and dry them off, while they are still standing in the empty tub. You can finish drying your dog with the towel. You don’t want to use a blow drier, they can get very hot and hurt your dog.
Once your dog is bathed, don’t let them outside for awhile, if you do, they will go out and immediately roll around in the dirt. Your dog will be rejuvenated and extremely active after their bath. Have fun laughing at them and playing with them.