Your Dog Needs Regular Baths

I was lucky to have had several professors at the vet-med school teaching me that nature has all the answers. They all claimed that living organisms have “friends” and “enemies” keeping nature in “balance”. Each of them had examples adapted to their subject. For example: bacteria are killed by penicillin found in yeast; foxes hunt rabbits.

The chain of natural enemies is huge, but the most important thing to understand, all my teachers insisted, is that all organisms have the ability to adapt. Either they will reproduce stronger new generations or they will become extinct. The process is not totally smooth: some bacteria became resistant to penicillin, rabbits became faster and had bigger litters, but on the other hand, foxes adapted too, generating a constant need for adaptation. Such changes in the heritable characteristics result in many diverse organisms better adapted to their environment.

Two breeds, two coats

A good example of how this process has worked in dogs is the contrast between two breeds: Samoyed and Basenji. Both breeds belong to the same group named “basal breeds”, genetically distinct from the majority of modern breeds, and still preserving ancient lineages to their ancestral roots. Samoyeds developed a two-layer coat allowing them to easily survive -40 degrees Celsius and Basenjis a fine short one-layer coat adapted for +40 degrees Celsius.

Naturally, such different coat components require different approaches to health and maintenance. Basenjis are known as a low-maintenance grooming routine breed, requiring only weekly brushing. Samoyeds’ coat, in contrast, needs much more attention and effort than weekly brushing.

What wolves teach us

I asked myself how those ancient dogs kept their coats healthy and survived without human help over those thousands of years. That made me curious to look at how our dogs’ nearest wild relative, the wolf, keeps its fur in balance with ever-changing conditions and seasons without human help. Wildlife ecologists claim that wolves spend a significant amount of time during the day on self-grooming as well as social grooming, using their teeth and paws to remove dirt, debris and parasites from their fur, helping each other by grooming parts of the fur they cannot reach on their own.

If the wolf can do it, I am certain that most dog breeds could maintain their coats on their own if they lived in a pack in the wild. Since we changed dogs’ natural habitats and they do not live in a pack, we do need to help them keep their coats healthy. But we need to learn how to help them in line with their natural mechanism of coat protection.

We should visualize ourselves as the leader of the dog pack and our pets as members of that pack. Believe me, our dogs expect that from us (the “pack order” is not that simple and will be discussed in the behavioral post). As the “Alpha” of the pack you are making the rules and other members have to accept the rules or be disciplined. In the sense of grooming you, as the Alpha, decide when and where grooming will be done. The established routine has to be regularly carried out. Thus, even if your dog’s paws are not dirty, wipe them clean before entering the house. As the Alpha you can fit the grooming to your schedule, but remember the grooming has to be done with the purpose of keeping that coat healthy and in balance with your pet’s nature; do not equate your pet’s hygiene routine with your own.

Do not equate your pet’s hygiene routine with your own.

The muddy puppy

I found over the years that most owners would bathe their pets often without any need, just following a human hygiene schedule, a bit less intensely. We need to establish a hygiene routine that mimics the dog’s hygiene routine in the wild pack. They would lick themselves to remove dirt, they would roll on the ground and rub their fur against rocks and other surfaces to further clean their coat and to distribute the natural oil to protect the coat.

With a muddy puppy in front of the house most owners would think about how to stop that happy puppy from jumping on its favourite sofa. Most of us would carry that ball of mud directly to the bathroom and use lots of water to wash all the mud and dirt out of the coat. Unfortunately, chlorinated water is harmful to our pets’ coats. It removes not only the dirt but also the protective oil from the coat and skin. Chlorinated water makes the coat dull and damages the skin and coat even more than natural spring water.

Brush, don’t bathe

In general do not bathe your pets; it will do more damage than good. Teach your pet to accept brushing as soon as you get it. Brushing does not remove the protective oil from the coat and the skin; actually it helps distribute it throughout the coat, and at the same time promotes circulation as well as helping you bond with your pet.

If you cannot accept my advice not to bathe your pet please thoroughly dry your pet after bathing or after walking in the rain. Dogs with double coats are especially sensitive and need to be carefully dried. The best way to dry your pet is again with the absorbent cotton cloth and the brush. A wet coat has a tendency to develop hot spots.

Why tap water is harder on pets than on us

To explain further why I am against bathing pets I would like to tell you why chlorinated water has a worse impact on our pets than on our own skin. We spoke about the constant adaptation of living organisms to their environment. Humans have been exposed to chlorinated water much longer than our pets and still are not adapted to it. Chlorinated water damages our skin more than we even know. We use moisturizers and many other forms of treatments to avoid or minimize damage that we do not even ascribe to chlorine in the water.

Our pets, due to the fur covering their body, have a much bigger body surface than we do. This larger body surface retains more water. The water evaporates leaving all the water-disinfecting chemicals (chlorine, fluoride, ammonia and phosphoric acid) on the skin and hair of our pets. Water mechanically removes the natural oil protecting the skin and coat of our pets and water-disinfecting chemicals do so chemically, making the coat dry and dull. When we remove the protective oil, sebaceous glands replace it with new fresh natural oil. With more bathing of our pets we actually make the sebaceous glands work much more than normal, which could impact the production of the protective oil, causing dermatological disorders.