Bathing? Help!

[Chelsea26]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/4473276-Dog-tomorrow-eek-but-I-m-injured

Link to other thread above for back ground

TLDR

Got a rescue, she delightful but MASSIVE! We tried to bath/shower her yesterday and basically a big fat no!

She shows no interest in upstairs anyway so getting her to the bathroom was a struggle and then flat out refused both the bath and the walk in shower. Not just refused but genuine shaking, frightened,unhappy.

Obviously we have up but she needs a wash. We’re looking at professional groomers but would like to be able to wash her between times.

Any ideas?

*gave up

Did the rescue tell you what she is like to bath? How has she been bathed previously?

She's not known you long. You may need to build a stronger relationship with her before you attempt to bath her again.

Start by getting her to stand happily on a tray or shallow bowl (depending on her size) Do this a lot and treat and reward for her standing in it eventually. Build up from her looking at it to one foot in it etc.

When she is happy with that you can have the tray damp and then reward for that over time build up the amout of water until she is ready to stand in the shower tray .

When she is happy to stand in shower tray you can have the shower on but next to her etc buidling up to her being happy with shower on her.

In the meantime use a damp chamois to wipe her down and brush

Maybe just try washing her paws in a bucket of warm water, get her used to that, then progress to paws in the shower. Then progress to full legs and more.

For our rottweiler we filled 2 stacker boxes with warm water outside.. Jug and ddoggy shampoo. And wellies.
For me not ddog! Managed for 10 years doing this! Stood her on the path and got to it!

I've got one of these for after walks to get the mud off. It's really good fr that but not for washing a whole dog

www.hozelock.com/product/portashower/

Thank you folks.

Rescue just said she wasn’t keen on water (she steps over puddles so she really isn’t!)

She is too big to do a ‘pretend’ shower tray on really, would need a child’s paddling pool which is perhaps not a bad idea…

She lets us wipe her and brush her but she’s really fluffy and it’s been really wet!

I have said to DP we need to fill buckets and just do it outside but it’s not ideal.

We have something along these lines www.hyperdrug.co.uk/red-gorilla-tubtrug-heavy-duty-rigid-rectangle-multi-tub-black/productinfo/TUBTRUGT/LARGE?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4ZvwmJOF9gIVz-3tCh0ZsANZEAsYBSABEgIXd_D_BwE which madam stands in to have her feet cleaned (often) and is bathed in (very rarely) with the aid of a watering can or hose.
About twice a year she lands in the bath and a lot of dried sprats are involved.

On the whole, dry mud comes out with a curry comb.

You might want to see if using one of these deals with the worst of the mud and other crap, thus completely avoiding the need to bath

bootbuddy.com/products/paw-buddy?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8bLe1pSF9gIViK3tCh3u9AFeEAAYASAAEgINtPD_BwE

Do you definitely need to wash her?
We've had our mioritic pup 3 months and we haven't bathed him yet although foster lady did bathe him when he first came to her before we got him
I find his coat dries quite easily and then we just give him a good brush to get the mud off and he seems to come up really lovely.
He is also pretty good at cleaning himself
We have washed bits of him just with a jug of lukewarm water in the garden when he's eg rolled in something smelly but he hates it
I do plan to take him to the groomers at some point to get his eyebrows trimmed if nothing else but it always seems a bit of a waste in this muddy weather

I bath and groom all of mine, with 3 it’s not economically viable to send them to groomers
I’m also very precious about them and trust myself more than a stranger, I can go as slow or quick as the dog will tolerate and there’s no stress.

I had a hot tap installed outside, it was £75 and the best thing ever. Quick soak, scrub and rinse and that’s that. I also use it daily to hose the mud off and because it’s used so often none of the dogs bat an eyelid.
I also have a blaster dryer. That took a bit of desensitisation because it’s loud but it’s essential with a long coat otherwise you end up with them smelling damp for ages.

Does your dog need washing? Ours has never had a bath and when she does roll in something unpleasant she gets a spot clean.

If it's causing the dog so much distress would it be kinder to not bath?

Perhaps just brushing (if that's tolerable) would be better.

I wouldn’t bathe her yet. She will still be decompressing and needs as little stress as possible. If she’s shaking and that anxious about it, she’s really not ready.

If you can leave it till the warmer weather, I would do something along the lines of Polly’s advice, maybe outside and yes, a shallow paddling pool would work - they do them for dogs that fold away after use and won’t be damaged by their claws. We bought a massive plastic plantpot, designed for planting trees for our large breed dogs and used the hose attached to a mixer tap, so we had warm water and it worked a treat.

Use the time between now and the warmer weather to introduce the process Polly suggested and work up to her accepting actually being washed.

We have used the no-rinse foam on one of ours in the past, when they couldn’t be bathed, but desperately needed it. Just google no-rinse dog shampoo, there are loads on the market, including ones with natural ingredients, some are sprays, some foams and some like dry shampoo - I have only used the foam on a dog with a thick coat, but it did the trick.

I am not big on regular dog bathing though, especially with outdoor breeds like the Mioritic. Their coats are essentially climate control and will be pretty weatherproof, washing will adversely affect that.