Have fun getting dirty and getting clean!

Hey Yukon,

 

My name is Lucy, and I am a golden doodle. I love to play in the water bowl at the park. It's super fun, and then my white fur MAGICALLY turns black! How cool is that?! But my human doesn't think it's cool at all, and tries to mess up my work by wiping my paws and brushing my fur.  How can I make her understand?

 

Your friend,

Lucy

 

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Hey Lucy,

 

It's great to hear from you. It sounds like you know how to have a good time at the park. Unfortunately, it is sometimes very hard to make humans understand that it is OK for our glorious fur coats to get what they call "dirty". Like I said in an earlier post, my human feels the need to clean me even when I just get frosting on my fur. It just doesn't make sense, but we have to be patient with our humans. As I have said before, they are only human, and they need our help.  

 

What I would recommend you do is make the best of the situation. Now you could take control and clean yourself off in the bucket at the park, as I demonstrate in the picture below. But then you have the challenge of returning home without getting distracted by all the fun sights and smells at the park and then getting your white fur black again. That is very hard to do. At my park there are a lot of squirrels that need to chased, even after I rinse off my paws. Then my human thinks I'm "dirty" again. 

 

Instead, the best thing to do is to let your human give you a bath. With the right technique, you can turn the bath into an hour-long treats and attention extravaganza. First, it's important to act like you don't want a bath. That way, they will want to give you treats. Sometimes I worry that my human won't know where the treats are at the doggie bath resort and spa, so I go straight to the counter where the treats are and point them out. Humans are slow, but my human eventually catches on. If necessary, you can knock the treat bowl on the ground. That makes noise, which gets the attention of your human. Of course, you have to help clean up the treats on the ground. We dogs are helpful, after all.  

 

Once your human has some treats, she'll probably figure out to put some treats on the steps into the bath. Wait until she does this. You can follow the treats up the steps. Then whatever you do, don't get in the bath until your human offers you a treat. It may take a while, but your human will learn.  

When your humans is giving you the bath, make sure you act like you want to get out. This will make them want to hold onto you, which is great. As you can see in the picture below, even though I act at first like I don't like the bath, with enough treats and attention, I end up pretty happy.