Bathing and Clipping

iluvmybeaglesbark

Hello! I have two questions...

1.) How often should you bath your dog and do you have to use a dog shampoo? I have a beagle and she ALWAYS finds smelly things to roll in. I normally just use wuave on her.

2.) Is it hard to clip your own dog? I figure, owners do it on horses all the time, is it any harder with a dog? My grandmother will be getting a dog soon and maybe one that needs to be groomed, it would be much easier if I could just get some $60 clippers and trim her every week.

thanks,
I♥MBB

PugLov

I am not exactly sure what is "to much" but I try to bath our dogs once every 2 weeks. I think if you wash them to much they can get dry skin. I have a short haired dog so I have never had to deal with grooming. I would assume the dog wouldnt care what it looked like

iluvmybeaglesbark

yeah i was thinking like once or twice a month

omgitsapibble

I bathe all my dogs every 2 weeks. I typically use Johnson and Johnson tearless baby shampoo. It's tearless, very gentle, and it makes my guys' coats beautifully shiny and soft.

Grooming dogs is easy as far as clipping their hair, if you just want a straight, even cut. If you get into doing fancy cuts like poodle cuts, it can get a bit harder.

I groom my 3 Shih Tzu's myself. I clip their hair every 4 weeks. I don't do fancy cuts on them, I just shave down their bodies and but I leave their fluffy tails alone. I shave them because my guys spend a lot of time rolling in mud, hiking through hay fields and woods, swimming in lakes... so they would get matted quickly, and burs would get stuck in their hair. So I shave them.

When grooming a long haired dog, it's more than just clipping them though. You have to pull the hair from inside their ears, this prevents ear infections and yeast infections. You also have to clip the hair under the pads of their feet. I pull their ear hair, and trim under their feet every 2 weeks, when I bathe them. Every 2 weeks is also when I do nailtrims on everyone, and once a week is when I clean their ears. I do this using the ear cleaner for dogs called T8, and some cotton balls.

tankstar

As long as you use a GOOD shampoo and rinse VERY well, bathing is not a issue. Some times my dog gets 1 or 2 bathes a week, somtimes like now Ihavnt bothered for about 2 months lol.

As for clipping. There is ALOT more to it then buying some clippers. which I would NOT recomend a cheapy pair. you get what you pay for. I would never buy a clipper set that doesnt have a detachable blade. as for grooming. you need more then the clippers, which will be more then 100+ bucks, blades you will need a 30, 10/15, 7/5/4 (about 50 bucks per blade) depending on the length you want. 30 for paw pads, 10/15 for privates, 7/5/4 for full body. and lets not forget the scissors. you will need/want thinning shears, curved sheers and straight sheers (ateast 50 bucks for a cheap pair). hematomas for ear plucking, ear powder and wipes, nails clippers and quick stop.a good slicker brush and comb. a HV dryer( 100 + bucks). and a grooming table. as it will be a puppy and will not stand still for you.

Mischief

I used to think that I could clip my own dogs and even after purchasing several different clippers, attachments, shears, scissors, blade cleaners, brushes, combs, rakes, slickers etc etc.....I have decided that it is NOT my calling...lol

I now leave it to the professionals, so much easier on me and less stressful for the dogs too. I know, not all dogs have the double pekingese coat that I have to deal with, but for the most part, I'd recommend finding a good, reasonably priced groomer that you can rely on. But who knows, maybe this is something you'd really enjoy and be good at.

I still spend almost 2 hours a day grooming my dogs, plus ear cleaning and nail trimming once a week and I consider this the easy way out...haha

I bath my short haired or clipped down dogs about every 2 months {I use Therapet Melon Ball Medori Shampoo and Bio-Groom Products} but with the baby, (in full show coat) I only plan on having her bathed a few times a year. It just depends on the dog, their activities, and their coat.

Good luck finding the perfect match for your Grandmother.
Some of our local rescues have a program called "seniors for seniors" where they adopt out older but healthy dogs to seniors who just want a loving companion, without all the hassels of training a puppy etc....

iluvmybeaglesbark

Thanks everyone

pawzaddict

I dont bathe my dogs unless they get into something like mud (I would just rinse off) or if they got into anything stinky I would use light shampoo. I used to work as a bather and if you bathe too often you can cause damage to the natural oils and dry their hair out as well as give them dry skin. We always recommended people bathe no more than once a month.

Grooming I never have had to clip my dogs. One has extreme undercoat so I brush him out a lot

Mikey

For bathing thats up to you.

Mikey came with dandruff and enough loose hair to clog the tub. I could agree=we bathe him too much! Twice a week at least but that's because we let him dig, and swim -he's a muddy disgusting felllow!!! Most the time we rinse him (like today) and only shampoo him once at most a month. With that we do a cream rinse and he is fed the best diet I can do. He's much healthier then he was and well groomed is his middle name.

I think if you over bathing you'll know it. And if you need to over-bathe you'll know it. Basically if it's twice a week or twice a year -if you pay attention to the dog's coat you'll know if your over bathing or not.

tankstar

I agreew tih mikey. some dogs can be more sensitive to to much bathing. I have bathed Blaze before 3 or 4 times in one week. it didnt kill him, OR dry out his skin.

Most people really don't even know hot to properly bath a dog. you need to get right in there and rinse rinse and rinse some more. I rinse until all bubbles are gone from the bottom of the tub. takes me about 5-10mins just to rinse out a easy breed like a toy poodle. just because I want to make sure I get every soap bubble out of that coat. Blaze takes me about 20mins to rinse and that's with a zoom groom.

Its really just a old myth that to much isn't good. humans have oils in our hair for a reason, but we all wash it right out, same thing for dogs, it doesn't kill us. get the correct shampoo and conditioner and learn how to bath properly and you shouldn't have any issue's.