Ask the Ao4 - X - Baths!

Woo, everypuppy! It's me - Dave! I sure hope Amber never gives me the look she gave our mom in that last picture on her post yesterday. Woo. Scary.

I don't know that I'd agree with Amber's strong words that she "hates" baths, because I'm not sure she's capable of hating anything. She's really the sweetest girl you'd ever want to meet. (Stormy is sweet, too, but in a very different way!) She sure doesn't care for them, though.

What I'm leading up to was another great question our very cute Beagle friends Jazz and Dixie sent in! They told us, "We hate baths as much as you guys do I think. We had another one today and were wondering if you have any advice for our mum on how she can make it more enjoyable for us. We don't mind the drying part as long as its with a towel and not the hair dryer!! But the bath is the worst!" Jazz & Dixie, you'd have to go a LONG way to top Amber in your reaction to baths! Could you hear her screaming in Japan? Probably our readers even farther away in Australia, New Zealand or Singapore could hear her sad, sad woos, if they knew when to listen. It was amazing! Having said that, I think Mom gives a great bath! It's one of the first things Mom and I did together after I was adopted!

I had her chronicle my bath from the other day on film for you, in hopes that it would help make the process more enjoyable for woo! Here's how me and my mom do it!

First, gather supplies!


Our very own shampoo and some nice, fluffy towels, still fresh with that Downey fabric softener freshness! Mmm! I love that smell! Mom forgot something, though.

Woo, there it is! See that purple thing? It's a Zoom Groom. Mom uses it VERY gently to help work the shampoo into my nice, thick fur. It's like a massage and feels GREAT! OK! What else?


Crocs for Mom's feety-feet! Not only comfy, but they protect her when I step on her feet. Mom's got a nice sock tan-line going, doesn't she? Woo. She was also sporting some quick-dry shorts and a cotton tee-shirt. Color coordinated by me, of course.

Here's the scene of the grime. (Amber made me say that!) Mom uses the shower because (1) the glass door contains us, so she doesn't have to worry about somepuppy jumping out of the tub and running off (one less stresser for her means she's more relaxed - so we are, too), (2) if she gives us a bath outside, there's no hot water! If she uses the warmest water comfortable to us, it helps encourage the shedding process to get it over with! and (3) there is a hand-held shower head, so she can rinse us easily!

Here I am, getting all wet!

Careful not to get water in my ears, Mom!

Sometimes, Mom uses one of the other jets on the shower head that do a massaging action. I like that a lot! To help with the soaping up, Mom usually dilutes my shampoo with water, so it spreads easier and so that she doesn't use too much. Then we rinse, rinse, rinse! It's important to rinse real well; any lingering shampoo can dry your skin out. Our shampoo has special moisturizers! I like to help the process by shaking as often as possible. It also cools Mom off real nice. I mentioned quick-dry shorts, right?

We start the toweling off in the shower. Do I look cute enough here?

Once you get out of the shower, it's important to stand in the middle of the room and give a real good SHAKE! Oh, sure, if your mom is anything like mine, she'll act like she doesn't want you to get hair and water all over the bathroom, but hey! What's a bathroom for!?!? Sometimes Mom is quick and she can stop me from shaking. Did you know that if your biped gently lifts one of your paws up off the floor, you can't shake? Totally unfair!

Here I am, after doing the shake-shake inside! Woo!

After we thoroughly saturate three towels or more, Mom puts my collar on me for a minute and leads me out to the sunny, windy deck! If she doesn't hold my collar the whole way there, I'll run off and do zoomies with Zim and rub all over the furniture and shake, shake, shake in the living room. She can usually avoid that. Here I am, shaking it outside!

Woo, that felt good!

As Stormy mentioned in her post the other day, we get a good deal of wind here! Today, for example, we're under a high wind advisory and are expecting wind gusts up over 50 mph. I don't want to say anything, but if there is anysibe who didn't get a bath the other day when Ammy and I did, today would be the perfect day! Woo. Mom basically uses the Kansas wind as our hair dryer! We play around on the deck to get dry, then do some fluffing and Mom uses the Zoom Groom again.

We do some more toweling off out there, too. Sun and the blast-furnace Kansas wind get me dry in probably less than an hour! If the sun is too hot, we move down to our lower deck, where there is lots of shade but still tons of wind. There is so much to see and hear and smell out there - I forget all about the bath/towel process! Mom usually brings the radio outside with us, so we can listen to stuff!

The whole process is pretty exhausting for me. I had to take a quick nap on top of Mom after a bit. When I woke up, she hooked me and Ammy up and took us for a walk, so we could keep drying!

Jazz and Dixie, I hope some of those tips will help your mom make your baths more enjoyable!

Luv,
Dave