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How to Make Bath Time Fun for Dogs

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Getting Your Dog to Enjoy Baths

Dog BathWeekly or monthly baths are necessary for dogs, especially pets with allergies or skin issues. Make baths fun for dogs so you both stop dreading the inevitable.

How to Make Bath Time Fun

Choose a Non-Slip Surface

It’s important for dogs to have traction when given a bath because slipping and sliding is downright scary. A suction-cupped bath mat works extremely well. Your dog won’t slip in water or shampoo plus the suction cups keep it firmly in place. Once your dog’s bath is done, pull up the mat and voila!

Don’t forget to provide a non-slip surface for your dog outside of the tub too. Many dogs shake excess water off and slip so let’s keep bath time safe and fun.

RELATED: How to Choose a Dog Ramp

Practice

Getting in and out of the tub or shower should be voluntary and fun for your dog. When getting dressed in the morning, randomly throw treats in the tub (on top of the bath mat). Trust me, your dog will find them. Allow him to navigate the slippery sides of the tub even if only his front feet touch down in the tub. You’re teaching tubs equal treats.

Over the next week or so, toss treats further back in the tub so your dog steps in and out. Again, don’t push or pull your dog. He should voluntarily walk into the tub and investigate.

When it’s bath time, throw a few treats in the tub and say “bath time.” If your dog has practiced several times, he will walk right in and eat the treats.

Smear Peanut Butter

Smear peanut butter or cream cheese alongside the tub or shower wall. Your dog will lick away while waiting for medicated shampoo to work its magic. You can use this trick if your dog is worried about running water or dislikes bath time. Once he licks off the peanut butter, add more until your dog’s bath is complete. This is also super simple to clean after your dog’s bath. Just spray a general cleaner and wipe. If your dog has a sensitive tummy, smear a canned version of his food along the tub wall.

More: 
Insect Repellent Dog Shampoo
Deep Cleansing Shampoo for Dogs
Dog Whitening Shampoo for all Coat Colors
Does Aromatherapy Dog Shampoo Work?

Dog Nail Trims: How Much to Trim Off?

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Trimming Your Dog’s Nails

Trimming Dog Nails

When trimming a dog’s nail, you want to trim the portion of nail without the quick. With frequent nail trims (twice weekly), nail quicks will recede, moving back toward your dog’s paws, as the quick doesn’t have to extend further to feed the nail.

White Dog Nails

With your dog standing next to you, take a peek at her nails. For white nails, you’ll notice a pink quick extending from your dog’s paw to about ¾ of the nail. The last ¼ of the nail is white and looks hollow. When viewing from the side or underneath, this is the part you’ll trim off.

VIDEO: Clipping Dog Nails – Trimming White Dog Nails

Dark-Colored Nails

Dark-colored nails can be a challenge so to view your dog’s nail quicks, flip over your dog’s paw and look at the nails from underneath. Look under one nail, you’ll notice gummy gray matter extending from your dog’s paw to about ¾ of the nail. This is the quick. The last ¼ of the nail will probably look hollow with no gummy gray matter present. This is the portion to trim off.

VIDEO: Clipping Dog Nails – Trimming Dark Nails

How to Trim Dog Nails

In the beginning, trim off the tip of your dog’s nail. As you gain confidence, you’ll place the clippers before the quick and trim off the hollow nail. When in doubt, slip the clippers away from the quick and trim. You can always go back and buff with a dremel or shape the nail with clippers.

When trimming a dog’s nail, do it quickly. Squeezing and then releasing the nail because you’re unsure causes pain.

  1. Look at nail and find quick.
  2. Place clippers.
  3. Squeeze handles quickly.

VIDEO: How to Use Clippers to Trim Your Dog’s Nail

READ ALSO: Why Dogs Dislike Nail Trims

Natural Pest Control for Your Home

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Protecting Your Home From Pests

Home Pest ControlWhen battling the war against fleas and ticks, it’s important to use a combination approach. Treat your yard, home and dogs. If you have cats, please protect them too. Research products made especially for cats, as they are sensitive to most insect repellents for dogs and even certain essential oils.

How to Protect Your Home

This is probably the easiest part because if your yard and dog are protected, your home is usually free of fleas and ticks. Now, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be proactive. It takes only one flea and within a few days, your home is infested–yikes!

I won’t bore you with a flea and tick’s life cycle. You can check that out here. It’s important to know, but if you’re already aware, I’ll jump right into the good stuff!

Wash Bedding

Wash your dog’s bedding weekly. This prevents fleas and their eggs from nesting in your dog’s bedding. When washing, I recommend using a hot water cycle and a fabric-free detergent.

Vacuum Carpet and Flooring Often

Most homes are carpet-free now. However, we still have area rugs, which ticks, fleas and their eggs can hide. Vacuum weekly or, if your throw rugs are washable, throw them in the hot cycle and air dry. For non-washable rugs, vacuuming works great.

For tile and hardwood flooring, mop weekly with a gentle cleanser, such as Seventh Generation Disinfectant Spray with citronella and lemongrass oil. I’m addicted to this stuff. Not only does it kill 99 percent of germs, but it also kills and repels pests. And yes, I’ve used this on our hardwood floors for years. Our floors are dark espresso and still look brand new.

Moderate to Heavy Infestations

For infestations, wash everything in hot water weekly and vacuum and mop floors daily. While this may not remove all fleas, you’re still removing some and their eggs, which is a good thing. In the past, I’ve added lemongrass and lavender to my steam cleaner and it did a pretty good job on carpet.

For heavy infestations, pull out the big guns and use insecticide carpet cleaners and sprays. Trust me, this is not my first choice, but given Lyme’s and other pest borne disease symptoms, I say knock them out and follow up with natural products.

READ ALSO: Protecting Your Yard From Pests

Understanding Dog Nutrition

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Canine Nutrition

Homemade Diets for Dogs

Dog NutritionWow, if you’re searching for a topic that evokes passion and debate in the dog world, look no further: homemade diets for dogs! One dog food camp recommends only feeding kibble while another camp demands feeding a raw diet–so many opinions and gray areas. So, hopefully, I can help point you in the right direction.

Caveat: This article is meant to provide additional information for pet parents seeking research on homemade diets for dogs.

Raw vs. Cooked Diets

Here’s the deal: this is your decision and obviously your goal is to create the most nutritious food for your dog so I’ll skip the debate on choosing raw or cooked diets. Either option is an excellent choice, as you’re feeding fresh wholesome foods.

For dogs, and us, it’s all about variation and balanced nutrition. Personally, I mix it up. My dogs eat a raw meal in the morning, and their supper is cooked protein with raw pulped vegetables mixed with yogurt, raw honey and other good stuff. Plus, a few times a week, they enjoy food-stuffed Kongs with kibble and canned food. My goal is to introduce different types of food, and hence variation.

RELATED: Healthy Dog Treats

Novel Protein

One bit of information I learned while working with a veterinary nutritionist, who was formulating a balanced diet for my dog, is to keep one novel protein in case of allergies.

Food allergies develop when dogs are exposed to specific ingredients over and over again so I choose not to feed my dogs lamb or duck. If they should develop food allergies (let’s hope that never happens!), I know they’ve never eaten lamb or duck before so I can create a limited ingredient diet using those proteins.

A Balanced Diet is Vital

Yes, it’s that important. So many cooked and raw dog diets are missing critical vitamins and minerals.

Let’s take a step back. Many people compare our diets to dog diets.  We don’t eat a bag of balanced kibble everyday. We eat healthy foods. I agree to a point. Dogs grow at a faster rate, especially large dog breeds, than children, so dogs may need additional nutrients than humans. Just keep that in the back of your mind.

Yes, you can feed a daily balanced diet or balance it over a week period. Now, balancing a dog’s diet depends on your dog’s specific needs, such as weight, body mass, age, chronic illness and other specific needs. Then, gather and calculate protein and carbohydrate (let’s say chicken and rice) nutritional values and compare them to your dog’s specific nutritional requirements. Now, you’ll need to add vitamins and minerals to supplement the gap between chicken and rice nutritional values and your dog’s recommended nutritional requirements.

Did I lose you? It can be so confusing. Check out “Balancing Your Dog’s Diet” article to obtain your dog’s required nutritional needs and find balanced recipes and experts, which can do the hard work for you. Personally, I partnered with an expert on balancing my dog’s diet and it was worth every penny!

READ ALSO: Homemade Diets for Dogs

Homemade Diets for Dogs

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Home-Prepared Dog Food

Diet Dog FoodChoosing a home-cooked or raw diet for your dog is an excellent alternative instead of feeding kibble. Now, I’m not against feeding kibble. Just make sure your dog flourishes on chosen kibble. Many times, we get stuck on specific ingredients and our dogs look dull. You need both excellent ingredients plus vitality.

Balancing a Dog’s Diet

When choosing a homemade diet, it’s so important to provide balanced nutrition. I can’t stress this enough. With so much information out there, floating around online and especially on Facebook, I urge you to seek and reference expert research, such as National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC) nutrient guidelines for dogs.

RELATED: Healthy Dog Treats

Many dog owners deem AAFCO as dog nutritional experts, however, “the NRC publications form the basis for Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) nutrient profiles, which are updated routinely” per 2010 AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines for Dogs and Cats.

You’ll need NRC’s Nutrition Requirements of Dogs and Cats (2006) resource book when calculating and balancing your dog’s diet. This book will provide your dog’s required nutritional needs plus nutritional value of chosen ingredients for comparison. Or, you can purchase and reference Monica Segal’s books, which provide details using NRC’s guidelines and balancing your dog’s diet. She also offers many raw and cooked balanced diet recipes.

Expert Help for Balancing a Dog’s Diet

Now, I found calculating a balanced diet for my dogs difficult and intimidating to say the least. So, I had Monica Segal, a well-known and highly recommended dog nutritionist, balance my dog’s diet during a phone consult. I thought I was doing well since my dogs looked fabulous on my version of a homemade diet, but four weeks post-NRC balanced diet per Monica, I was blown away at his energy, robustness and gleam in his eye.

Several years ago, Dr. Susan Wynn DVM provided a homemade balanced diet for my Bouvier who was undergoing chemo for bone cancer at the time. Dr. Wynn works with your dog’s personal vet because she takes your dog’s physical appearance into consideration and is extremely beneficial if your dog has a chronic illness.

Additional Resources

Check out my favorite website of all time. I’ve used and followed Mary Status’ information for many years. She offers great resources packed with valuable information on homemade diets and much more.

Instead of throwing unknown amounts of vitamins and minerals in our dog’s homemade diet, seek assistance from a professional. It’s worth every penny.

Dog Training Nation is a dog training blog for pet owners and dog lovers. We cover a range of topics from puppy socialization tips to dog aggression to dog health. It is our hope you share our content to make the world a better place for dogs.

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