Giving your pet a bath

**Darlene** · 09-21-2010, 02:16 PM

Do you give your pets baths or send them to a groomer?

I've never had to bathe my cat, glad for that, she'd rip me to shreds.

Dog gets a bath in a plastic kiddie pool in warmer weather and in a shower we have in the basement in colder weather. Going to be warm tomorrow, guess where Riley will be...yep, poolside.

Outdoors we just have the full pool, 2 buckets & 2 hoses laid out in the sun to warm. Shampoo, metal collar and a towel and he's all set. He's not a fan and if he could talk he'd sound like Eeyore "gotta take this dumb bath, I feel like a dork...hurry it up and lets get this thing over"

**Russ** · 09-21-2010, 02:21 PM

Wifey gives our dogs a bath in this. They are in the pond a lot and sometimes get "an algae smell" for lack of a better description.

Just a web photo..not my wife or dog.

**Molemommy** · 09-21-2010, 03:16 PM

I bath the dogs in the tub we have the shower head that removes... tried to do it outside with the hose and they both hated it... it was a nightmare....

**thesightofoneself** · 09-21-2010, 03:24 PM

use to use a groomer but now in the laundry sink. she's old and blind so we dont leave her alone anymore. she gets stressed

**druthb00** · 09-21-2010, 03:34 PM

My cats are relatively well behaved when it comes to baths. KC, the 15 yr old, had a bath before we left IN for FL. My mother offered to bathe him for me while we were packing...and I gladly accepted because he's always been such a pain with water. He was ridiculously good! She was shocked lol. He just sat there in the sink and then she used a hair dryer (on cool of course) and he was completely calm.

Our kitten got a bath a few weeks after we brought him home. He decided to play in the toilet...and I'm sorry, I don't care how clean you think your toilet is...no way am I touching "toilet water cat" until he's clean. I had BF hold him while I ran the water in the bathroom sink. BF put him down in the water and I was holding him down...then realized I didn't need to hold him down, once he was wet it was like he was already defeated so what's the point of fighting? LOL, then I used the hair dryer on him and held him in one hand under his "arm pits" and he curled his body up and just looked at me like "yep, I'm bad...I'm sorry." This was about a week before he learned how to flush the toilet....in the middle of the night, scaring the hell out of me lol.

**Neeley** · 09-21-2010, 04:03 PM

Dog #1 - DH gives her a bath in the tub and does her nails
Dog #2 - DD gives him a bath outside, he chews his own nails down - has never let us cut them
Cat #1 - I use to bath in the tub, but haven't in a few years, he cleans himself
Cat #2 - Sometime I will drizzle water down her back, but not often - she cleans herself. She's 17 and a real bath would really upset her at her age.

**frugalfranny** · 09-21-2010, 04:06 PM

I bathe and trim both of my dogs.............and do their nails,ears, and their anal glands........UGH!

They are really good about it and don't even try to shake while I bathe them. Though they let me know with their body language, when I call them for it, that they don't/aren't going to like it.

I make them come to me.......and because I have already gotten out the towels and shampoo they know what is going to happen. They can walk pretty sllllloooooowwwww while coming to me!

**annymoll** · 09-21-2010, 04:12 PM

#1.) Chow /Shepherd/Pit mix:Groomers
#2.)Min Pin: Will let me bathe him outside in a kiddie pool, groomers for nails and dips along with the others.
#3.) Pit Bull: Loves water, will let me bathe her inside, but she is too squirmy and strong. Once she jumps out of the tub she takes off running thru the house.She goes to the groomers, cannot be outside without sun block, she is albino.

We also have two cats, they go to the groomers .

**shoiji** · 09-21-2010, 05:53 PM

I used to give my first cat a bath because of fleas. She was pretty good with it since she was so young. Would just stand on the edge of the plastic tub with extreme fear on her face while she was bathed.

Now I buy the wet wipes for cats. If the semi-long haired one seems especially smelly I will use it to wipe her bottom down. I also sometimes have to but out any small mats from her belly. Amazingly she seems to know why I am doing it and doesn't squirm around.

**Neeley** · 09-21-2010, 06:07 PM

When we use to bath our boy cat I would have to wear a long sleeve shirt and put those "toe" socks on my hands and arms to keep him from scratching me up. He and I were quite a site. I looked like a total fashion disaster and, when all wet, he looked like naked mole rat.

**mndtrp** · 09-21-2010, 06:31 PM

We've only bathed our cat once. She got out the apartment door the day after the complex sprayed chemicals all over the lawn, and I didn't want the cat cleaning herself with those chemicals.

Once we moved into the house, we never bothered bathing again. If we let the cat out on her leash, I don't use chemicals on my lawn, so it doesn't matter what she rolls in. Occasionally, if it looks like she's getting dandruffy, I'll use a wet washcloth to wipe her down.

**Palooka** · 09-21-2010, 10:24 PM

I use to bathe my cats many moons ago, but I don't find it necessary now. They keep pretty clean, plus that was quite the chore!!

**sjohnson3278** · 09-22-2010, 10:30 AM

I bathe the dogs myself however, they go to the groomer to have their hair cuts. I try to stay on top of the bathes myself since the groomer has proven to be a luxury for us right now. I did try to do the hair cuts also but that turned out to be a huge hassle and ended up with the dog hating me for a week and me crying after I saw what I did, lol.

**Rhayne** · 09-22-2010, 02:39 PM

When I lived with my parents (2 dogs both chihuahuas, 2 cats) I would bathe the younger dog in the tub. She would shiver and cry and look at me like I was killing her and she was pitiful. The older dog would sometimes get in the tub on his own if the female was being bathed. You couldn't pick him up to put him in though because he hated being carried. If it was warm outside I'd take him out and spray him down with the hose and then he'd let me rub shampoo all over him. But he always ran after that so getting him rinsed was a pain. The cats got a bath about once every 2 years and that was a typical cat bath. Claws out, hair standing on end, meowing and looking pitiful.