Bathing

Is there anything better than a freshly bathed Golden?

We love our dogs to be clean but we also love to have fun with them and this can mean muddy walks in the field. Bathing not only keeps your Golden looking and feeling his/her best, it also gives you a chance to get a good look at your dogs skin and coat.

  This depends on your lifestyle and your pup.  We recommend once or twice a month however if your pup doesn't get very dirty in that time you could go longer. We would not bath more than once a week unless there was a mud emergency. 

We have used several brands over the years and our personal favorite is  Envirogroom! They have many different variety to offer, we love their  Color Fixation Shampoo. 

They also have several conditioners however we typically do not use a conditioner. Instead we add a little bit of Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) to our shampoo mix. This acts as a conditioner loosening and dead coat while braking down any shampoo residue that may get stuck on your pups skin making them itchy. It also acts as a pest deterrent although I do not recommend relying solely on this as your parasite prevention.

Goldens love water but some decide they don't care for a bath. 

Our recommendation is to keep it positive and be prepared. Have your shampoo already mixed up (we like to use a pitcher to mix our  shampoo with warm water and a splash of ACV), your towel's at hands reach, and it doesn't hurt to have someone to hold a leash just in case your pup gets squirmy.

We start by sudsing up the head and butt first (this is how I was taught to bathe a dog with flea's, it prevents the flea's from caroling inside your pup, so we have made it our practice for every bath just in case). After the pup is all suds up we start rinsing from the top down. When we think we have all the soap out we rinse one more time being sure to get under the neck, belly, tail and armpits.

Do not spray water down your pups ears but do not worry if you get some water in his/her ear just clean it out after the bath. 

We like to blow dry our pups with a high velocity dog dryer. This allows us to blow out any dead coat that didn't come out in the tub, it also lets us get a good look at all of our pups skin (we watch for hot spots, fleas, ticks, iteration, or cuts). 

Blow drying also gets them dry much quicker making them smell better for longer.

If you do not have a dryer we recommend bathing them on a warm sunny day so after you towel dry them you can let them play in the sun to help dry their coats quicker.

Brushing your pup will build your bond and keep him/her looking and feeling good. Brushing can also prolong the times between baths. We like to brush our pups out at least once a week sometimes more depending on our activities. We brush our pups out after a hike in the woods or a walk in the field. When we go camping we brush our pups out every night before bed.

This is our main brush. It works great for removing burs and debris that gets caught in their coat. We always use this brush before a comb.

We use a mettle toothed comb after the slicker brush to check our work and to pull any dead coat out that the slicker may have missed. If the comb snags on a tangle we know we need to use the slicker brush in that area more.

This is a great thing to have on hand! We use this on our dogs after they go on a walk or to the vets. It has fine enough teeth to catch the fleas and pull them off.

We do not recommend using this unless your pup is blowing his/her coat. It is great for removing dead coat but it can also brake and damage good coat. 

This is what we use on our puppies coats. It doesn't do much for their adult coats but it is very gentle and is a great brush for teaching puppies.

Goldens are prone to ear infections because they have drop ears with a lot of fur around them. So to prevent ear infections we like to keep the hair around the inside of their ear trimmed, and wash out our pups ears once a week with 1 part white vinegar to 1 part water or Eco Ear.

If their ear seems very dirty we pour a little cleaner in the ear and massage the ear canal, then wipe it out with a paper towel and allow the pup to shake his/her head, wipe out again and repeat until their is no dirt when you wipe. 

If the ear doesn't seem that dirty dampen a paper towel or cotton ball with your cleaner and wipe out the ear.

We like to brush our dogs teeth at least once a month. We use a doggy tooth past and tooth brush. If plaque builds up you can scrape it off with a tooth scraper. 

Bad teeth is not just unsightly and gives bad breath it can also cause heart problems.

Every dog is an individual and some can go a month or two between nail trims. We recommend trimming nails at least once a month but we like to do it every week. We use a Dremel with a drum sanding attachment rather than nail clippers, this allows us to go shorter on the nail and leaves it smooth with no sharp edges. Clippers pinch the nail meaning you cannot get as close to the quick without pinching the quick. If you do go too short don't panic! You can purchase Quick Stop to keep on hand or use a powdered substance such as flour or baking soda to dip the nail in to help stop the bleeding. Just remember stay calm and don't make it a big deal or your pup made develop a fear of getting his/her nails trimmed because it scares you.

We trim the back of our dogs ears using short straight scissors. 

 We trim the tip of the ear with short straight scissors being careful not to nick the tip of the ear.

 Using thinners on the outside of the back edge of the ear will give it a more natural look.

This is just cosmetic, it gives them a neat tidy look.

We trim out the inside if our dogs ears to allow more airflow. This prevents moister from being trapped and helps prevents ear infection.

 We use our short straight scissors to carefully clip the hair on the inside of the ear.

 We use thinners on the extra hair just below the ear canal. Thinning this hair helps the ear fall flat and again allows more air flow.

Neat feet look great, help keep your pup cool and cleaner. We use clippers with a 40 blade to scoop out the hair under their feet making sure to get between the paw pads. 

 We use straight scissors to trim the hair behind the front leg from the paw pad up to the carpol pad.

  Using are straight scissors we trim any hair that goes past the front of the nail.

We use a slicker brush to brush the hair up from between the toes to the top of the foot, and trim with straight scissors.

Just like the front feet we scoop the pads out using clippers with a 40 blade. 

 Using a Slicker brush we brush the hair up on the back of the hock, and trim using straight scissors being careful not to trim too close to the leg just trimming enough to make it look nice.

  Just like the front seat we trend any hair that goes past the nail using are straight scissors.

 Brushing the hair between the toes up with a Slicker brush we use our straight scissors to trim the Tufts on top of the foot

We trim the tips of our dogs tails to keep them looking neat and it helps keeps things cleaner.

Brush the tail out and let it hang straight down. 

Using your hand hold the hair between your fingers just below the tip of the tail and trim with straight scissors in a straight line just below your fingers being careful not to cut the tip of the tail. 

 Holding the tail straight out, brush all the hair down. Using straight scissors trim any wispy hair that falls below the thicker hair on the tail. 

We use a #10 blade can you do a sanitary trim on our dogs. This helps keep everything cleaner and allows more time between bathing.