Dog baths and sleepy cats.

Today is sunny and the first time Crom has ever had a bath outside of a tub. It's obvious that it's so much easier to bath a large dog outside instead of inside, but are you aware how fun it is?! Well if your dog doesn't like water then you'll probably have a much harder time. The only difficulty I had was keeping Crom from wanting to drink the hose water.

Here's what I use and some tricks to get your dog to warm up to hose baths. If your dog doesn't like water and hates hoses, don't push them to get used to it quickly and provide lots of treats.

I bought this dog soap at TJ Maxx for only $3.99! It smells clean and a little masculine. The treats are grain free and even though they're kind of small, they break REAL easily to make smaller pieces. Me and Crom love Instinct grain free treats, for different reasons.

Provide treats every few minutes through a bath for your water-hatin' dog! The smellier and softer are many dogs favorites. Breaking treats up into smaller pieces does two great things... it lets your dog eat them faster which in turns doesn't stall you as you're frequently giving him rewards and it saves you from over feeding him while you need to give him plenty of rewards.

Bio-Groom is slightly pricey, maybe $11-$14, but Doberman have sensitive skin and are prone to drying out. This stuff keeps Crom's skin and coat moisturized for weeks and because of that, really I don't use it that often. I run my hand up Crom's back, against the direction his fur grows, and spray the product right behind my hand where the coat is standing up. It helps get it beneath his coat rather than just on top.

So we ran around for a little bit to exert some of his energy so I have a little easier time keeping him staying still/not wanting to play with the water. Soaped him up.

Gave him treats for being all good and soapy!

Sprayed him off then let him roll around in the grass that needs mowed...

Made him pose...

Speak...

Let him lally-gag some more...

 

Sprayed him down with his leave-in conditioner, of which I basically give him a body massage with to make sure it really gets worked in, and there is my happy Crom Noms end result!

If your dog really hates the hose, you don't feel like you can deal with it, or you just don't have time to work with them, you can always use a baby's play pool to bathe outside.

And there's the sleepy cats. Some of the photos are pretty bad because I was just using my phone to take these.

PS...

I got this shot and was reminded of one of my favorite photos of Crom as a puppy!