Grooming

The occasional bath is fine, but bathing excessively can easily dry out the skin.  Here is a list of grooming supplies and techniques for bathing your dog.

How to Bath a Dog

• Wet the dog all over.
• Using DOG SHAMPOO, lather and rinse. Be sure not to get any shampoo in her eyes, as it irritates the eyes. Also make sure not to get water in her ears, as it may cause yeast infections in the ears.
• Using DOG CONDITIONER, apply it to the coat and rinse thoroughly.
• In addition to towel drying your dog, you may want to blow dry the dog as well.
• If you find that the coat is a little straighter than you remember it, mist the coat with a spray of water and crunch it in your fingers.
• Rather than bathing, brushing the coat once a week will help bring the natural oils to the surface and prevent matting.
• In the case of an occasional mat, some trimming may be necessary.
• Their adult coat starts coming in around 12 months and this can be a time when the coat is a little more prone to matting, but a lot of it can be taken care of by diligent grooming.

Sensitive Areas

• Trimming around the eyes allows you to see their faces that are always full of expression. You may want to tidy a little around the ears as well.
• If your doodle happens to get some water in their ears during a bath time dry it as well as you can, and keep an eye on it for the next few days. Often they will scratch at it and become irritated with their ears, if there is an infection. If you suspect a problem, contact your local veterinarian and get the appropriate antibiotic ointment.
• Keep their bottoms clipped up, for cleanliness purposes.

Here are the things we use when we groom our dogs.

Check your dogs’ nails every few weeks to see if they need trimming. You can choose to do this yourself or have it done at your local veterinarian clinic.

The clippers can be bought from us, if you choose to do it yourself. When trimming, clip the ends of the nail, just where the nail where it curves down. Avoid cutting the quick, as this is contains the nail’s blood supply. It is necessary to keep the nails trimmed regularly, because if they are not, the quick, or the inside part of the nail, grows further down as the nail grows. This can later be clipped accidentally, the nail will bleed.

If this happens, apply Styptic powder (or cornstarch or flour) to the end of the nail. This can be purchased at your local vet/pet store. If none is on hand, press cornstarch or flour to the end of the bleeding nail. It will also help stop the bleeding.

If you are nervous about trimming your dog’s nails, as I was in the very beginning, ask your veterinarian for tips and a demonstration.

Here is a link with some super photos and further explanations.