Miley is a golden retriever.
Golden retrievers are magnets for mud and dirt.
And they sort of help the process when they dive into deep mud puddles to cool off.
So very often Miley comes home looking like a Siamese cat rather than a golden retriever.
With muddy paws, she can’t come in at all.
But without a command, she goes to the water hose as soon a we return from a long excursion.
And she lets me hose her off:
There was no coercion involved in getting her to do this behavior.
She just learned that she couldn’t come inside until she got hosed off, and after just a few repetitions of being left outside for a bit, she learned that if she wanted in, she had to get hosed off.
She will even turn on command so you can get the other side!
Does anyone find their dog’s coat gradually developing an awful aroma as it dries indoors, especially the underneath coat. Well I believe it’s largely to do with bacteria developing on warm and still slightly damp fur. It doesn’t seem to occur so much when the dog dries out in warm sunlight. However, we have discovered that this kind of wet coat odour can be quickly eliinmated by the use of a hair dryer on a high setting. We believe that this kills the bacteria responsible for the smell. We’ve noticed that wet coat smell affects some coats more than others. For example, woolly undercoat seems to be a fertile bacteria breeding medium and those dogs with less wool seem less smelly. But as I said, in our experience the hot air from a hair dryer seems to do the trick, obviously taking care to keep it at a safe and comfortable distance from the dog. Also, especially with longer coated dogs,special everyday attention is needed for the rear end. Sorry if this is unrequired information for most owners.
For some dogs the sudden noise, wind and heat from a full on hair dryer can alarm them when they first meet up with it, but they’ll get used to it if gently introduced.
My Tibetan Mastiff doesn’t have that characteristic wet dog smell that a lot of breeds seem to get. But as a breed they very little oil in their coat and it takes a lot of water to penetrate to the undercoat. He dries off quickly too and mud doesn’t seem to stick – a quick wipe over and his feet are literally sparkly clean. He’s totally odourless when dry and when he’s been outside the only thing he smells like is freshly line dried linen. I suppose a dog that’s outdoors in such an unforgiving climate has to be pretty weatherproof to survive. I used to know someone with Newfoundlands. Compared to my TM, they used to smell pretty rancid when wet and doggy when dry.
I wonder if the smell is partly linked to how oily the coat is? I’ve found with shar-pei, the horsecoat has the shortest, oiliest coat and usually have a stronger body odour than the brushcoats who have a slightly longer coat that doesn’t seem to get as oily. Brushcoats have a rather pleasant lemony/musky “perfume” rather than the classic dog smell. And the bearcoats have the longest coat which seems to have less oil and no real odour.
Forgot to say, an indispensable tool for drying and cleaning dogs are microfibre cloths and towels. I use the ones made for household cleaning and I have several sizes from face cloth to hand towel size. They really soak the water out of dog fur and wrung out in warm water they get feet and bellies clean in no time. I even use them for dry bathing my two if they need it by adding some dog shampoo to a bucket of hand hot water, rub the dog down with it then repeat with just clean water. Great when you have a big dog and no outdoor hose.
Along this line: If you have a drooler, the Magic Eraser is an indispensable tool for removing dried slobber from walls and furniture.
As for the odor–I just chalk it up to being a dog. Its among those animal odors (horses and cattle are others) that seem pleasant to me as they bring back fond memories. The smell of pigs, sheep and goats, on the other hand, I find offensive.
It’s just oil. Golden retrievers are very oily dogs.
As retrievers love water, who’s trained who there? Seriously, what a clever girl. It never ceases to amaze me what dogs can learn in a short period without scheduled training as such. My first shar-pei went blind and when the local council fitted dropped kerbs with textured flags for blind humans, She taught herself to use them on her own initiative, without me even noticing at first that she was taking me to them. This was despite her being totally blind with glaucoma. Before that I had to watch her for falling off kerbs and she often stopped and felt for the edge with one foreleg when she wasn’t sure where the exact edge was.
Cool!
Homeless dogs in New Zealand taught to driving cars
Next thing is to teach the dog how to read your shopping list so time not wasted while out practising the driving on her own.
I know I couldn’t trust my two. The TM would come back with nothing but meat, bread and butter and the Bearcoat would be straight in the pub for a beer and breathalised on the way home.
Nice!
Mine stays outside the door waiting to be dried when he comes home wet from rain. I found out he learned this behaviour after waiting for him to enter the apartment and he didn’t, turns out even though I didn’t think he was wet, he did (he was a little on the paws).