Dog Bath Time: How Often Is Too Often?

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!?

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!

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 Products You Use Matter!

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)?