How often do you bathe your dogs? Whenever I see this question asked, answers seem to run the gamut from incredibly often, to barely ever. I have to admit I’ve always erred on the side of bathing my dogs often. For many years I bathed Kitsune every week. He has a lot of allergies, many of which cause him skin irritation. Frequent baths have always gone far when it comes to keeping those types of issues at bay. I also allow my dogs to have pretty much free reign of our home, furniture included. Who wants a dirty dog rolling all over their nice clean sheets?
Mud Season!?
The look on Kit’s face tells you all you need to know about what he thinks of baths!
We finally seem to be at the tail end of ‘mud season’ here in new England. For anyone not familiar, although I guess it’s pretty self explanatory, the aptly named ‘mud season’ occurs around the end of winter/beginning of spring. The snow that piled up all winter starts to melt. The ground begins to thaw, and your yard basically turns into one giant mud pit. If you have dogs, mud season turns your regular cleaning routine into an extreme sport. The less mud you have in your house, the more points you accumulate. But it’s impossible to have a perfect score. It’s never been done before. I’ve spent so much time the past couple of weeks mopping muddy paw prints off my kitchen floor. But I digress…
An Individual Thing…
I know a lot of dog owners are opposed to bathing pets often. I’ve had fellow dog owners lecture me about bathing Kitsune too much. But I’ve talked to others who bathe their furry friends just as often, or even more so, than I do Kitsune. The fact of the matter is that there are no set in stone guidelines for how often dogs should be bathed. How often is too often for your dog can depend on a number of different factors – each dog is an individual!
Bath time for Sir Sheds-A-Lot, aka Fenrir.
Things such as your dogs’ fur type, where you live, what type of activities you and your dog are involved in, human preferences, etc, can all impact how often your furry friend needs to be bathed. Since we moved out of the city, I’ve been able to switch my own dogs from weekly baths to every other week. I guess all the pollution they were exposed too impacted their skin and fur more than I had realized. Kitsune’s skin allergies have also greatly improved since we moved, so I don’t have to bathe him as often because of them. But we do spend a lot more time playing outside now, and I enjoy when the dogs smell fresh and clean instead of like dirt. Bathing them every other week seems to, currently, be the Goldilocks number for us – not too clean, not too dirty, juuuuust right!
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The biggest argument against bathing dogs super often is that, in some dogs, it can cause skin issues such as irritation and flaking. My dogs have never experienced negative symptoms despite being bathed often, but that’s not to say that weekly (or even every other week) baths would work for every dog. I personally feel that one of the biggest factors you want to take into account if you want to bathe your pet often is what type of shampoo you use.
I’ve always used high quality, detergent/soap free dog shampoos on my own dogs. Soap free shampoos still get your pooch nice and clean, but are less drying and don’t strip away as much of the furs’ natural oils. You don’t want to use human (even baby) shampoo on your dog because of the pH differences. I know Dawn is a popular choice when dealing with fleas. It shouldn’t be used for regular bathing because it’s very drying. High quality dog shampoos may be more expensive than other options, but a little bit goes a long way. A 16oz bottle of dog shampoo lasts each of my dogs a good 6 + months.
So really what you should take from this post is that there really is no concrete number for how often you should bathe your dog. It can depend on a lot of different factors. If, like me, you do decide that you’d like to bathe your pet often, it’s best to use high quality products to avoid drying out your pets fur and skin. What do you think? How often do you bathe your own pet(s)?
Kit’s favorite part of bath day – getting dry again after!!
19 Comments
Great post and it is so confusing as every one does say something different and I personally think we should look at the conditions we live in. Layla for example gets bathed every 6 weeks as she only goes for walks and does not do the park that much anymore.
I feel like there’s so many aspects of pet keeping that are not ‘one size fits all’ type situations. Bathing frequency is one of them. There’s so many factors that should be considered when deciding what’s best for your dog. Thanks for commenting!
Oh Fenrir, he looks priceless! Awww is definitely top of my cute words for him!!
Dog washing I would think depends on where your dog goes and if you can cope with the aftermath * grin *. I don’t have a dog but it would not occur to me to get it washed unless it got really muddy I guess and I don’t envy you YOUR muddy season! I do get your point about shampoo, some must have harsh detergents in and cause skin damage to so many dogs. A good shampoo would not need to be used as often would it?
Aw thanks! He is a cutie isn’t he? He’s got quite the personality to go with his good looks, lol. I just adore him. Using a good, high quality dog shampoo is important for sure, especially if you bathe often like I do.
We do as needed for our dogs. We have two that suffer from allergies so they get bathed more often than the other two. And then throw in the spot cleaning for different situations. We are very careful with what shampoos we use though!
Sounds good! Bathing often for sure seems to help Kit’s allergy symptoms too. 4 dogs is a lot to bathe too! Sometimes I feel like just two can feel like a lot lol. Using high quality shampoo is so important, or at least I’ve found it to be so. I don’t think I could bathe mine as often as I like too if I used harsher products.
I agree it depends on the dog. My Penelope is not one that needs a bath often at all. She gets one a couple times over the summer but other than a good face wash, she’s good through the rest of the year! Unless she rolls in something funky etc. Her skin is really sensitive so frequent bathing causes her a lot of skin issues. My moms dog on the other hand needs a bath and grooming every couple of weeks!
For sure! I feel like mine start to smell after two weeks or so without a bath. Not super gross or anything, usually like mud/dirt if that makes sense. We’ve been spending A LOT of time outside though, and they’re experts at getting dirty. It probably helps that both of mine have longish fur. I’ve always imagined that if I had a short haired dog instead he/she might not need baths as often.
Yes! Bathing your dog isn’t a ‘one-size-fits-all’ concept. We have 2 dogs in our house and one is bathed significantly more often than the other. Why? She has allergy issues and skin sensitivities that require us to stay on top of it a little more. Plus, she is usually the one rolling in mud and making a mess lol
So true! I don’t think there are many things that are “one size fits all” when it comes to keeping pets, and how often to bathe certainly isn’t! I bathe Kit often for those same reasons – baths really seem to help with his allergy/skin issues. I think my Fenrir could go much longer between baths but he’s a heavy shedder so I honestly like to bathe him often too just to get out as much loose hair in the bath as I can!
My answer about bathing my dog would fall within the hardly ever. She has no problems and only might need a bath once or twice a year. With Jasmine, we had to bathe her somewhat regularly because she was susceptible to skin infections. Every dog has different bathing needs.
For sure! I can’t imagine bathing my dogs only once or twice a year. This weekend we had some amazing weather and spent most of our day playing out by the brook. My two got SO muddy they went right into the tub when we got home. No way I wanted all that mud all over the house! Every situation/dog is different though. That must be nice to not have to bathe them very often!
Thanks for sharing this information, all good points to consider in how often you bathe your dog. We hardly ever bathe our Husky, somehow dirt just falls right off her! Conversely, my little dog Phoebe recently developed allergies – we moved to Florida last year and apparently the grasses don’t agree w/ her all that much. The allergies make her itchy and everything sticks to her hair. I’ve started bathing her at least weekly with a gentle itch relief shampoo and conditioning rinse. It helps her so much.
Love & Biscuits,
Dogs Luv Us and We Luv Them
I’ve heard people say that about huskies! My Fenrir is an AKK with a thick double coat and I find he still benefits from frequent baths. Dirt etc doesn’t stick to his fur as much as it does to Kit’s but his fur seems to hold in smells more. Baths help when he’s shedding too…which is all the time lol. Poor Phoebe! I’m glad the baths help her though. They help Kit too. I felt so lucky when we moved and his allergies actually seemed to get a bit better instead of worse. I was worried they’d get worse since we were moving from the city to a rural area with a lot more plants/trees around.
Just like you, we’ve found that our different dogs have different bathing needs. Our Maltese needs a bath pretty regularly, but our American Eskimo/Pomeranian mix hardly ever needs one. Our Puggle mix also can go a long time without needing a bath.
Having multiple dogs really shows you that different dogs can have very different needs! I always say that I’m glad my two boys get along – they are different from each other in almost every way. Thanks so much for your comment!
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