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bathing your cavie

Super Princess

Well-known member
So How often do you bathe your dogs?
What do you use?
Are tehre any good product review websites? we all know about the food review websites..but what about shampoo?

Oliver..had a never ending skin itch. even vet after vet, he never really found relief.



With maggie..shes been doing really good. she had had just a few baths (or runs under the water in the sink to clean her up.) but i noticed her skin was getting itchy..looked dry and i wanted to go find a good shampoo (she hadnt used shampoo before ..and this might be part of the issue)
so i took her to the park yesterday..she was a mud monster. i went to petsmart and asked them to recomend a shampoo, told them a bit of her dry itchy skin.
and they recomended GNC's moisurizing oatmeal dog shampoo.

I used it with her yesterday, and today she feels AMAZING.. soooo soft and oh just like when she was a baby. she isnt itching as much i notice..

so i think its good..but ive only found one review online..and it wasnt all that good..said she bathed her dogs a few times a week and they still stunk. lol so i was thinking maybe her dogs just stink? lol
but a few times a week.. is that too much? or how often do you guys bathe yours?
 
I don't about how often to bathe your puppy, but the Oatmeal Shampoo makes sense to me.

I used to give my children oatmeal baths for their eczema when they were little. Worked wonders.
 
I was going to suggest oatmeal puppy shampoo. Tess's vet had me use one when she was recuperating from flea bites (she's allergic). I'd put it on her and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Seemed to soothe her quite a bit.

I do think bathing twice a week is too much unless there's a medical reason though. Tess gets bathed at most once a month. For a pet not a show dog that seems sufficient (barring encounters with mud puddles of course! LOL).
 
Came back to add that I learned recently that people shampoo is bad for dogs because their skin has a different ph value than people's. hadn't known that before.
 
We've been using TrueBlue shampoo and conditioner on Skippy since we got him. 3+ years and we've not needed to use any other brand so far. We bathe him once every 4 weeks or so. Bear in mind though that he's indoors most of the time, if we take him out and he gets a little dirty we only wash his feet in between his big baths.
 
We've been dog sitting my daughter's Brittany. When he started bitting and chewing on himself I bought some oatmeal shampoo and a followup spray at Petco. It made all the difference. I then used it on Charlie and he likewise has wonderfully soft hair.
 
If you have been bathing Maggie very regularly, that may well be why her skin is getting dry. Frequent bathing removes the natural oil from the coat and if you dry with a hairdryer the heat will make the skin dry. Once a month is normally a maximum, mine get bathed 3 or 4 times a year. If they get really dirty in-between - which is usually just mud on legs and tummy rather than all-over filthy, unless they roll in fox droppings - swill them in water and towel dry, though I usually just let the mud dry on and brush it out. A dry shampoo can be useful in between baths as well. But definitely not a bath every time they come in from a muddy walk (this winter in the UK you would have been bathing them almost every day!).

Kate, Oliver and Aled

PS Even for fox droppings, tomato ketchup is very effective!
 
I use oatmeal shampoo and conditioner on my three (John Paul Pet - expensive spoilt pooches, :D), Maddie and Pippin get a bath every fortnight, but that's only because that's when they go to hydrotherapy. Rosie gets a bath about once every 2 months.
Maddie gets itchy in hayfever season, and the oatmeal shampoo and conditioner has proved to be the best stuff to soothe her skin.
 
Dogs should never be bathed several times a week -- that's for sure!! That often definitely would be a cause of dry, problem skin. not a solution for it :(. Keep in mind no dog in the wild would ever be bathed with any kind of soap -- not a normal activity and as Kate says, strips out needed oils that are necessary for both healthy skin AND coat.

Most dogs simply do not need frequent bathing -- they can be rinsed in water and/or brushed and that will remove 90% of dirt in the coat.I wash mine about the same schedule as Kate -- at most. Some vets say you could wash them once a month or so, but HAS to be a shampoo for dogs as the skin pH is different and human shampoos would be very harsh.

People who say their dogs still 'stink' probably shouldn't have a dog... :lol: -- they are not stuffed toys after all, they are DOGS and smell like DOGS... :). Not only that but they prefer odours we dislike and dislike odours we like -- so forcing them to 'smell good' with perfumes and scented shampoos all the time most overwhelm their far more sensitive noses. For us it would perhaps be like sitting in the midst of a smelly cat litter box! They tolerate an awful lot from us humans, don't they? :)

But for all those reasons -- I do really encourage people not to constantly wash and blow dry their dogs. Groomers tend to recommend doing dogs every 4-12 weeks, at most -- not more than monthly and certainly never several times a week.
 
Oh okay good! Then I'm doing fairly good then.
Dad always bathed Oliver and it was so long ago I was living with them I can't remember.
Even when she walked in duck poop I just rinsed her feet off.
I also yowl dry/ let her air dry in the warm house.
Dosnt take long.
Awesome. Thanks guys!!:)
 
Oh, no! I'm not supposed to use a hair dryer on Bentley? That's his favorite thing in the whole wide world. When he was a baby he liked to sit on my lap while I dried my own hair and I guess it was a natural transition for him to enjoy sitting in the same chair, on a towel, while I dried (as best I could) his hair after an infrequent bath. If I leave the room to get a brush, etc, he's always just sitting there waiting for me to return and he looks at me as if asking, "You're not finished, are you?"
 
i dont htink theres anything wrong with using a hair dryer. especially if he loves it. :D
The groomers use it don't they? (i have never taken maggie to a groomer yet and my parents took oliver)
but when dad used to wash oliver at home..i think he just towl dryed and then let him run off the rest. (im the same way tbh lol i ave a hair dryer..but unless im going out i towl dry and then let it dry itself out)

i think its just a preference.
but then...i never googled the question lol.
 
Using a hair dryer is fine in moderation :) -- Most of mine love the warmth too! But just be careful it's not on a too-hot setting, not too close to the skin, and not frequently (eg several times a month). Dryers are hard on hair just as they are for human hair and also can be very drying for skin. I would only use one on a cool setting for a dog with a dry skin problem. (y)

There were some horrific pictures in the UK recently of yet another dog that was left by a groomer under a hairdryer and had severe burns on its body -- it was another in the space of just a few months and there are now calls to make dog grooming a licensed profession. So using a hair dryer definitely requires attention and care.
 
I use the Bed Head shampoo for dogs- the neon pink bottle with the bone shaped cap. I put a conditioning rinse on him afterward from Kiehls (a little pricey but worth it). I even use their facial products so it is great they have a pet line as well.
 
I bathe my two about 5 times a year, my youngest Ollie is very long haired and I get him trimmed slightly twice a year, the last time just before Christmas, he is looking pretty dirty at the moment but I want to hold out until the weather gets warmer as I prefer to let them dry naturally, I also use sentitive shampoo as I noticed he started scratching after being bathed, I stopped using conditoner as I have to be careful what I put on him now.
 
I only bathe the girls every couple months, they go to the groomers every 3-4 months and get a bath there. I use pet head oatmeal shampoo on lady and a brightening shampoo on Gracie, and both get the Furminator de-shedding conditioner. If they get dirty on walks I just stick them under the faucet to get off the grime. I use the pet head or CHI pet detangler/freshening sprays if I find they are getting a bit stinky, but other than that I dont see a need to bath them frequently especially since its hard on their skin.

I had no idea Khiels had a pet line! I use all their stuff myself so I will have to look into get the girls some as well :)
 
Monty and Kaischa are bathed 2 spots in the year. Except they have rolled in something :-D We go to the dog hairdresser, Kaischa is clipped regularly. If I bathe them, I use the K9 Aloe Vera Shampoo and the K9 Leave-in-Conditioner Spray aloe Vera Nano Mist.
For Occasionally I can recommend the Show Off Spray from Chris Chistensen if they stink sometimes ;-)
 
Im veering off subject slightly here,but only because its related. Im wondering A) when I should give Teddy his first bath, and B) when I should give him his first claw clip (not me personally, im not brave enough).

As he is a puppy, would it be better to give him a bath soon so that he doesn't feel nervous about it in the future (he is taking everything in his stride and is not a nervy boy, but you never know). I don't intend to give him regular baths, just when he is filthy or overly sandy if necessary, but he will be bathed a handful of times a year. Also his nails, when should he have his first pedicure?
 
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