Dugan the Dog Gets a Bath

Dugan the Dog gets his bath.

Dugan the Dog is a dog with some strong muscles. But after a week without a bath, it isn’t just his muscles that are strong. You could say that the atmosphere is very thick immediately around him. Dugan usually gets a bath every Saturday (whether he needs it or not). When he was a little fellow baths were accomplished without too much difficulty, I simply picked him up and put him in the tub and I knelt down beside him and used a shower hose to wet him down and rinse him off. I could easily turn him around to rinse one side and then the other.
But now Dugan is a little larger, he weighs 150 lbs and is about 5 ft long without stretching out his tail. It’s impossible for him to turn around in the tub. Nowadays Dugan gets bathed in the walk-in shower. Dugan has a pretty good attitude about it all; he reluctantly but obediently walks into the shower stall after the bathroom door is shut behind him. Then he plops down while heaving a huge sigh. After getting the water running at the appropriate temperature, I wet him down while he is lying there and when I need to wet underneath him I say firmly “stand up please”. It always amazes me but he will always stand up when I ask. After he is soaked down good, I lather him up good with a shampoo that is made for horses. This shampoo works well because it doesn’t dry his fur and skin out too much. I never tell him that he is using horse shampoo because he is very sensitive about being compared to a horse! I use baby shampoo around his eyes to make it a more tolerable experience for him. Then I rinse him down, going quickly when I rinse his face. He hates getting his face rinsed! Then I towel dry him with 2 large bath towels. He is very happy when he gets towel dried and he starts acting giddy.
It does not matter how good you shampoo Dugan, he always smells like a wet dog. This presents a dilemma. I have him all nice and clean, but I don’t want to put him outside while he is damp because he will roll around and get filthy. If I leave him in the house, he will stink up the place. It would take forever to try to dry him with a hair dryer. So the solution that works well and makes him happy is to load him up in the back of the pickup truck and drive him around till he is dry. He wears a harness (special ordered for his size) and is secured by a light chain that is fastened to the bed of the truck. You have probably observed that most dogs like the wind in their face during a car ride. Here is my theory on why they like this: Dogs take pleasure in smelling things, and the air being rammed up their snouts amplifies the sensation of smells. Dugan’s chain is just long enough to let him put his head around the side of the truck and get a 45-50 MPH wind up his snout. He likes it.
After the truck ride, Dugan gets brushed out to remove any loose hair. I use a brush you would normally groom a calf or horse on his smooth and flat spots, and a nylon brush for his more boney and delicate spots. After the bathing, drying, and brushing, Dugan looks quite dapper. He will usually lie in the kitchen and relax.