How do you wash your Golden after a splashy muddy walk?

[TheCrenchinglyMcQuaffenBrothers]

Just that really. We've had him for four months now, and unbelievably, today is the first day we have gone out and he's come back with a splashy muddy undercarriage and feathers (we live in the SE so we've been lucky with the weather til now).

I do have a MudDaddy but it didn't really require that level of wash today. I resorted to rubbing him down with wet flannels but the mud was from the road and is really black and brackish and it wasn't that successful. I'll leave him to dry off and see what it looks like. We used to just leave our Labradors in the utility after a muddy walk and lo, five minutes later, they were perfectly clean again, as if by magic, but somehow I don't think that's going to be the case with this boy! As this is going to be a regular occurrence from now I thought I'd see what others do. Is it better to just leave it to dry and brush out later for example?

Here’s the dog tax…

I leave my boy to dry, then I just groom him once he's dry and get the tangles and clumps of dirt out. But that is mostly because he's a wanky tosser pain who is always v. stimulated when he gets back from a walk, so I have to wait for him to calm down before I can do anything...and by that point he's usually dry enough a gentle brush works!

Yours is very handsome though😍Such an innocent face

Get a plastic curry brush like you use for horses. They're about £3 from a saddlery. Dry him with a hairdryer and then curry out the dried mud. He'll come up lovely.

DDog is 9 and has been bathed by us once and hosed down outside around once a year. Unless he falls in the canal (again) or properly has a mudbath then I find letting it dry and then brushing him is enough.
We have no carpets though and he doesn't go upstairs or on the furniture so theres not much he can get muddy that a mop won't sort

Yours is very handsome though😍Such an innocent face

Looks can be deceiving, believe me 😂
(He's not nicknamed Captain Prick for nothing...)

Agree with others, let it dry, brush it off.
Our dogs are big and white with long coats and we never bathe them. They get walks in fields and woods and come back with filthy legs and bellies, but as soon as it dries they get a good brushing and are clean again. My husband jokes to people that our dogs are Teflon Coated 😂

My friend has a Golden and just let's him dry off naturally and the mud falls off.

Oh god, good luck! I have no advice, only sympathy. I have a golden girl so my house always has a light coating of fur and mud particles x)

I don’t stop her from rolling in muddy puddles though. It’s her happy place. her joy is so palpable it outweighs the joy of having a spotless house for me.

i use a dry towel to rub most of the dirt off, and I hose her down in the garden if the weather is warm. About once a month she gets a shampoo in the shower.

we purposely have no carpet in the downstairs of the house and I sweep it with a brush most days to stop the furnados building up - easier than hoovering!

I use a portable battery powered jet washer to get the worst of it off if he’s really bad. If it’s just legs and a bit of tummy I leave it to dry and then it either drops off and gets hoovered or brushes out. He doesn’t like being washed so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

I’ve lowered my housekeeping standards dramatically since having a dog 😂

Towel dry and leave to air dry…..then brush. Surprisingly our GR doesn’t seem to stay dirty. If it’s really bad he gets a rinse from the outside hose before the towel dry

I bought a collapsible washing up bowl front Dunhelm and fill up a 5L bottle with hot water before we go out in car. Water will cool and you can put some in bowl and wash down dog's undercarriage and legs then quick towel dry. Stops the car boot getting stinky.

The only time we bath ours is if they have rolled in something stinky like fox poo.
Most of the time the mud just drops off as it dries. It's as if they have special non stick fur. If they are really bad, a hosepipe (summer) or bucket of warm water does the trick

We have a "Mr Knobhead"

Hosepipe outside then towel dry, unless you want mountains of dust in the house when the dried mud falls out!

Not that helpful as he's short-haired, but I've got a noodle towel that my seven month pup adores - it rubs all the worst of the mud off - and a drying coat that he hates for when he's really soggy. He's only had one bath since he came to me, which was at the groomers, just to get used to it. He came home smelling so perfumed it was days before he smelled like himself again. Unless he's properly stinky I don't intend to bathe him again as I love that puppy smell too much. However, I suspect it all depends how house-proud you are!

I have a floofy, fox shit rolling, bog dwelling spaniel and we also canicross so the pair of us are frequently mud caked and it’s v claylike around here. We have a mud daddy which works well, but recently got a hot tap outside the back door with a mixer shower thingy. Not expensive and a game changer. I don’t think he cares about the water temperature but I have raynauds which is crap after a long winter run. I can rinse/full hose him and sort my trainers/boots out before either of us get in the house. If he isn’t too minging I just chuck on a dogrobe to contain the filth and it mostly magics off somehow on the way home in the car.

I’ve never understood the philosophy of ‘Let it dry then the muck will fall off’ is this while he is laying on the living room floor or does the poor guy have to sit in the kitchen for 2 hours? It’s simple, just take him into the garden and hose down the mucky bits have a shed load of dog towels and he’s done. They don’t mind the cold water and the only problem is wet towels to dry in the middle of winter. A small price to pay for a happy companion and a clean house.

We lost our Golden this year 😥 but after muddy walks she would be straight in the downstairs shower to wash off her undercarriage. I found if I left her to dry she always seemed tangled and, being a pale Golden, she still looked dirty, even after brushing. I loved her soft fur after a quick underneath shampoo, and of course she smelled better too.

Oh, and we had her groomed every few months, and kept her 'feathers', 'trousers' and chest hair well trimmed so that she cleaned easier.

This was our girl...

My giant breed loathes cold water (understandably), then even after towelling, their heavy double coats are so sodden that they leave massive wet patches in the conservatory and kitchen. The stench of wet dog for hours on end is unbearable. It's much easier for them and for us to wait until the dirt dries then brush it off. Hosing off for us is the precise opposite to what you say; it means a wet house with wet towels hanging to dry and a cold, miserable dog.

Such gorgeous dogs - and really sorry about your loss @BilboBlaggin she looked lovely.

Our filthy mud loving spaniel get a very brisk drying with a dry towel to get the worst off then she stays downstairs until the mud falls off. It’s so weird - she’s absolutely filthy then a few hours later she’s cleans again! We do give her a brush if she’s really bad though.