Unless you’re equipped with a professional salon facility and a set of top quality tools, giving your canine a dog bath is going to present one of the most challenging moments that you’ll ever spend with your pet. There are fortunately some creative ways that you emulate a salon within your own home – all designed to make dog bathing a lot easier! We describe those ways right here.

Set Up a Home Salon

To set up home salon, it might help to know what’s inside a salon first, so here’s a description. In the typical doggie salon, you’ll find a series of walk-in tubs that reach up to the waist. A ramp leads into to each tub and there’s usually a color and safety cable inside of each that holds each dog inside. You’ll also see an assortment of shampoos and conditioners. And you’ll see very strong blow dryers that groomers use after administering dog baths.

You won’t have all this fancy equipment in your home, but you can use your own facilities to emulate a well-equipped salon. The kitchen sink for example, makes a wonderful tub for small dogs, while your own tub does the same for larger dogs. If your sink or tub comes with a spray hose, that’s even better since it makes rinsing really easy.

Dog Bath Preparation

You must remove all tangles, knots, and matted hair from your dog before bathing it because they’ll only worsen in water. So after you’ve given your pup a *thorough* brushing, get all your “home salon” equipment together in one area: plenty of towels, shampoo and conditioner, cotton balls to clean and protect the ears, blow dryer, brush, and protective eye drops (mineral oil). Then place a non-skid mat into the sink or tub.

Put the dog into the bathing container and proceed to protect its eyes with the appropriate drops. Then put one cotton ball in each ear to protect their canals.

Now you can fill your sink or tub with lukewarm water until it reaches your dog’s knees. Wet down the dog with your sprayer, starting from the back of his body.

Appropriate Shampoo

The dog bathing shampoo that you use shouldn’t contain a lot of chemicals. Shampoo designed for human hair is a good example of what you should **not** use since it too, contains a lot of chemicals and since it doesn’t work for a dog’s skin pH level. See if you can find a good, natural product (colorless, odorless, etc.) that won’t cause tearing. Your vet may prefer that you use a medicated shampoo if your dog suffers from a troubling skin problem including fleas.

Of course to make your dog’s hair more manageable, you can use a shampoo that’s designed to work with your dog’s hair type. You can for instance, use a protein-rich shampoo that will make your dog’s hard coat soft and shiny. Or you can use a texturing shampoo for your dog’s wiry coat. If your dog is white, use a bluing shampoo. It’ll safely brighten and whiten your dog’s coat even more.

If odor is a concern, try a deodorizing shampoo.

A quick note here about medicated shampoos… It’s best to leave medicated shampoo on a dog’s coat for about 15 minutes prior to a full bath. These kinds of shampoos won’t be affective until they get enough time to work, but if you notice your dog acting sickly during this 15 minute window, rinse off the shampoo immediately and rush the dog to the vet or nearest animal hospital. Signs of a dangerous reaction include nausea, drooling, trouble standing, or lethargy.

You’ll want to work in whatever appropriate shampoo you choose until you achieve a nice lather. Make sure that you cover its entire body including the face and private areas. Just take care not to tangle the hair as you lather the shampoo.

Rinsing

Start draining the water inside the sink and tub. Then using the sprayer, rinse the entire dog starting from its head. Take special care to rinse away all traces of shampoo because if you don’t, your dog’s coat will be sticky, hard to comb, and itchy when dry.

Conditioner

After shampooing your dog, you’ll want to follow up with a nice conditioner or cream rinse. Both make the dog’s coat soft enough to easily brush, and eliminate static electricity at the same time. Use one cup of conditioner or cream rinse mixed with one gallon of water as a finishing rinse.

Drying

Try to squeeze as much water from the dog’s coat as possible with your hands. Then place the dog atop a dry towel. With another dry towel, rub down the dog to remove additional water. Even in this step, you want to be careful not to tangle the hair. So if your dog’s hair is curly, don’t rub it dry, pat it dry.

Your blow drier will bring the coat to a complete finish as long as you’re careful with it. If you put the dryer on its hottest and strongest setting, and then aim it toward one spot for too long for example, you’ll burn the dog and he’ll run away from you. But if you put the dryer on a low or medium setting, and move it in the direction that you’re brushing the hair, the dog just may stick around for that salon look you’re trying to achieve.

Some dogs that fare better from drying via indoor air rather than blow dry air are dogs with curly hair (curly hair will frizz if you blow dry it) and dogs with very short hair (even a low-setting may burn a short haired dog). We don’t recommend that you let your dog dry outside since a wet coat and an outside breeze is uncomfortably chilly.