a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: April 2019

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Not Fond of Bathing My Dogs

SUMMARY: And they're not usually fond of it, either.

I seldom bathe my dogs. Chip and Zorro do, on occasion, get wet anyway (out in the rain, or Chip just loves to play in the hose spray), and they get a good towel rub-down, which always seems to be enough. If I think they've been in poison oak--or if they've definitely (there's no "thinking" involved here) been rolling in nasty stuff, then--yeah. But I and my knees and back would much rather be doing other things.

And that has been true forEVER. Have seldom bathed any of my dogs. Amber was the most often abused, because her coat was oily and accrued dirt like a magnet.  And Sheba's white coat parts would gradually turn brownish just from dirt gathering in that tightly packed husky coat, so she was forced occasionally to suffer.

My agility dogs, though--well, I hosed them down regularly at agility events if it was at all warm, which washed away pretty much everything. So not too many baths. Sometimes during coat-blowing season, to loosen the chunks of hair to make removal easier.

I've never worked as hard as I should have to ensure that my dogs love baths. Poor puppers.

Sadly, I have few photos of Amber, as much as I loved her. Here she is damp as a teenager. No idea whether it was after a bath or just being naughty somehow.

Nothing digital of Remington wet. This is closest I have. But I definitely have photos of him wet. Will have to look for and scan them in.


Poor abused Tika. In grooming truck owned by her foster mom. Tika was happy to see her, but the bathing part seemed sketchy.

Boost, same day. Such an expression of trauma. (See https://dogblog.finchester.org/2014/01/at-groomers.html for details about this day.)

Sheba. I loved the way her coat looked wet, but it did not appeal to her as much. Tika's coat did exactly the same thing. 



I have no Chip bath photos, but he looks like this wet; in other words, adorable. (From playing in the hose.)

Have no good digital photos of Jake wet (not surprising, since I had just started digital when he was old), but here he is doing agility after he has been hosed down a bit.

Yep, nothing with Zorro wet at all that I've found. We don't get out enough (e.g., no walking, hence no walking in the rain). He does love playing in water, so this is the closest I've gotten...

Related posts:

https://dogblog.finchester.org/2008/03/loveyerdog-aka-bath-day.html

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Is This Blog About Dogs, Training, and Agility? Or What?

SUMMARY: It's complicated. Plus: Clothing.

I have been doing very vague and random amounts of dog training lately. Not every day. In the last week I have taken Chip and Zorro out to the sidewalk in front of my house on leash, a couple of times individually and once together. With a pocket full of treats, I've been working on the ol' walk nicely at my side trick. So, works pretty good on the sidewalk in front of my house once they figure out that we're not going anywhere and that I'm giving them a lot of treats.

And that's about it for dog training today.

In other stories, I walked into a store today accidentally (I went to the mall to have a less hot, interesting place to just get more steps in, and suddenly there was this shirt in the window display...). And bought 3 tops that don't exactly fit my usual type, although in a way they do.  Here are some bad selfies of two of them. They were on sale for an average of 60% off, too, or I'd have never brought them home. Just think how much I saved! By spending all that money!



Lace and flowers, not my usual thing.
And embroidery But I like the styles and colors.