B-A-T-H Time

That's right...gotta get behind those ears.

We gave Miles his first bath as a member of this family recently. It wasn’t too bad. He doesn’t know the word bath yet, follows around the house (including into the bathroom) already, and weighs barely more than 10 pounds…maybe eleven after the bath.

Ryan scooped him up into the bathtub and away we went. He squirmed for a minute and spent a good chunk of time pressing himself into Ryan’s leg, but once he got four paws massaging puppy scrub into his little body, he calmed right down.

The bath wasn’t an absolute necessity. After all, from an evolutionary perspective, animals, including humans, didn’t really do a whole lot of bathing…particularly not with soap. After all, a dog’s fur has a natural health and lubricating oils like vitamin D, and too much bathing can compromise those things. Have you ever noticed the new puppy smell on your little friend? Well, puppies are supposed to smell that way.

But, today’s puppy shampoos are made with this in mind. That’s why veterinarians recommend some regular frequency to bathing, but base it on need rather a fixed schedule. Why would you need to bathe a puppy? There are plenty of reasons, but the big ones are parasites (e.g. fleas, ticks, mites), allergies, odor or your pup might just be plain old dirty. Luckily, we did not have to deal with any those, despite Miles’ penchant for rolling around on the ground.

Nope. We were washing away a little culprit known as puppy dandruff. As it turns out, it’s actually a pretty common condition with puppies. The flakes that we see are just dry skin, or dander. Those natural oils in the puppy’s skin aren’t producing quite enough yet to keep the hair as healthy and shiny as it could be. They are underdeveloped in a puppy’s early years, but they will eventually get there. The reason we see Miles’ dandruff so much is because of his fur—he’s all black save for a few white spots on his face, chest and paws. If you want, you can learn more about it here: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2111&aid=873

We’re not really worried about his dandruff, and it’s not likely that we’ll be bathing him often; just as much as he needs should do the trick. One of the treatments for puppy dandruff is oatmeal shampoo (fatty acids are good too…good thing Rob keeps extra bottles of fish oil on hand), which is what we washed him in. Once we had him all soaped up and looked down into those I’m-curious-about-what-you’re-doing-but-will-you-please-stop-it eyes of his, we gave him a good rinse and wrapped him up in a towel.

Behavior-wise, Miles is an all-star. Sure, he’s curious and excited, but he’s also got some basic communication down and he’s easy to calm down. Where he is truly surprising, though, is in the tub. He’s quiet and patient, and he just about took a nap while being dried. He really is a good boy.