How to Bathe Your Dog: A Simple Start-to-Finish Routine

Some dogs love bath day. Most tolerate it. A few act like the tub is out to get them. Whichever kind you have, the bath goes faster and calmer when you do the same steps in the same order every time. Dogs settle into a routine, and so does the person washing them. Here is the routine we recommend, start to finish.

Brush first, before the water

Brushing before the bath is the step most people skip, and it is the one that saves the most trouble.

• It pulls out loose hair before that hair ends up in your drain.
• It works out mats and tangles. A wet mat pulls tighter, and then you are cutting it out.
• It knocks loose the surface dirt so the shampoo can reach the coat instead of sitting on top of it.
• It gives your dog a few calm minutes before the main event.

Five minutes with a brush saves fifteen in the tub.

Get the water temperature right

Lukewarm is the rule. Test it on the inside of your wrist, the same way you would a bottle for a baby. If it feels pleasantly warm, it is right. Hot water is uncomfortable on a dog, and cold water makes them tense up and fight the whole bath. Wet your dog thoroughly from the neck back. Leave the head dry for now — we will get to it.

Lather from the neck back

Now the wash. This is where our Antimicrobial Pet Shampoo comes in — a biodegradable, cruelty-free shampoo made with thymol and lemongrass. It washes out dirt, dander, and coat odor, and it leaves a light, clean lemongrass scent that is not perfumey.

1. Squeeze a line of shampoo along the back, from the base of the neck toward the tail.
2. Work it in with your fingertips, down through the coat to the skin. Take your time here. The lather does the cleaning, and it needs to reach the skin to do it.
3. Move to the chest, belly, legs, and tail. Paws too, and between the pads if your dog will let you.
4. For the face, skip the pour and the lather. Wipe it with a damp washcloth instead, and keep the eyes and ears dry. Water in the ears is how bath day goes wrong — a bit of cotton just inside each ear helps, if your dog tolerates it.

Rinse until the water runs clear

This is the step most baths shortchange. Shampoo left in the coat dries into a dull film and flaky residue, and then people blame the shampoo. Rinse from the neck back, lifting the coat with your fingers so the water gets underneath. Watch the water running off your dog. Cloudy means keep going. When it runs completely clear, rinse for one more minute anyway. Long and double coats hold a surprising amount of lather.

Towel dry, then stand back

Have two towels ready — one for the first pass, a dry one to finish. Press and squeeze along the coat rather than scrubbing back and forth, which tangles longer fur. Expect the full-body shake and probably the zoomies. Both are normal, and honestly our favorite part of the whole event. Keep your dog somewhere warm and out of drafts until the coat is dry all the way through.

Finish with a once-over

Bath time is the one time your hands go over every inch of your dog, so make it count. Once they are toweled off, go over them slowly — ears, neck, armpits, belly, between the toes, under the tail. You are looking for the small stuff that shows up over an ordinary week: hot spots, scratches, bug bites, little scrapes.

For those, we finish with our Wound & Skin Care Spray — a drug-free spray with aloe, made for the routine care of exactly those small things. A quick spritz on the spot and bath day is done. Wash, rinse, dry, once-over, spray. That is the whole routine.

The two-step system

If you want both steps in one order, the Pet Care Bundle pairs the shampoo with the spray. One washes, one finishes. That is the system we built, and it is how we designed bath day to go.

A few honest notes. Every dog is different. A thick double coat takes longer to rinse than you think, and a dog who found something foul to roll in may need a second lather. And the once-over is routine care, nothing more. If a spot looks raw, keeps bothering your dog, or seems like more than everyday wear and tear, your veterinarian is the right call, not a spray bottle.

Questions about bath day, the shampoo, or the spray? Ask us through our contact page. We are a family operation, and we read every message.