Home Dog Grooming Tips You Should know

Grooming your dog is an essential part of being a dog parent. Not only does good grooming keep your do looking and smelling good, its also essential to their health.

To keep your dog happy and healthy, it’s so important that you keep them well groomed. Dog grooming at home is, overall a fairly straightforward process, but it can be a bit of a pain. A lot of the time, our dogs don’t exactly want to be cleaned and much prefer to run around in the mud. If you find that your furry friend prefers to be caked in dirt than having a shower and will do absolutely anything to avoid being clean, help is at hand! 1. Have treats to hand. A bit of bribery and corruption really helps! If you have a dog that really hates grooming, where every wash turns into a bit of a chase, having some snacks available can act as the prime distraction. This should also help by forming an association between treats which might make it easier to entice them into the basin next time. 2. A flannel is your secret weapon. If you’ve ever bathed your dog, you probably won’t be surprised by us telling you that lots of dogs really dislike it. But why? We humans love a good soak in the bath. More often than not, it’s the spray from the shower going into their eyes and face that irritates them so much. To stop that from happening, simply place a flannel or cloth on the shower head. Place the covered nozzle close to their skin and gently move around in small, slow circles particularly on their head and they’ll be happy to shower in no time at all. 3. When you’re shampooing your dog, it’s important to keep the soap out of their eyes. Just like us, shampoo stings when it gets in your pooch’s eyes, so you really need to protect their face. To protect those sensitive areas, make sure to shampoo the head and face first and wash them off before shampooing the rest of your pooch. 4. Hair dryers are noisy and can get a little too hot for your pup. This makes grooming them far more stressful than it needs to be. While we might be more comfortable using a hair dryer on our luscious locks, we should try to avoid using them with our dogs. Instead, go old school and towel dry them as much as possible, especially when it comes to their head. Most dogs enjoy this part. 5. If you do decide to use a hair dryer, make sure you’re gentle with it. Move the dryer towards your dog’s body on a slow velocity at medium temperature, but try not to get too close. Brush the area where the coat is parted for a beautiful sleek look. Test the motion on your own arm to help get a sense of how it feels. 6. Treat your pooch to a massage. For some dogs, it can seem as though nothing will relax them while they’re being groomed. If your dog gets particularly worked up while being washed, consider massaging their faces when you’re drying them off. Giving your pooch’s face a good rub can help distract and relax them when they’re just not enjoying having a bath. 7. When you’re brushing your dog, move methodically around them. Section their body into different areas and go step-by-step. Be sure not too over brush the same area as you can cause brush burn (soreness of the skin) and heat stress, neither of which will make for a relaxing home grooming session. 8. Chill out with your pup. Even day-to-day maintenance brushing can be a stressful situation for your dog, but it is a crucial part of dog grooming at home. To help this basic grooming go more smoothly, consider giving your dog a brush while watching the TV. Everyone will be chilled out and this relaxed environment will ensure your dog is relaxed too. 9. Regular brushing. One method of ensuring that dog grooming from home is effective is to brush your dog as regularly as you can. Not only will regular brushing benefit you with less hair to clean up, but your pup will get used to being groomed and – hopefully – they’ll start to enjoy it. It’s a win-win! 10. Finally, you’ll want to massage and play with their feet. It sounds crazy, but dogs can be irritated by a professional groomer trimming their pads and working on their paws. Getting them used to their feet being massaged and played with is so important and your groomer will certainly thank you for it as trimming pads can be tricky. Because this is the only part of our dogs that sweat, looking after them is very important.