Choosing The Right Dog Shampoo

Dog Shampoo Tips

 It's all about maintaining the skin pH of your dog!

Aggressive marketing campaigns of brands tend to confuse the buyers. Often times phrases like "Premium Dog Shampoo", "Ultra Premium Dog Shampoo" influence their purchase decision. The fact be disclosed here: There's no medical standard set for a dog shampoo to be categorized as "Premium" or "Ultra Premium"! However, as a matter of fact any shampoo - especially those that are designed to be used for humans may prove to be harmful in the long run. The skin pH of a dogs is higher than that of humans, which means a dog's skin is more alkaline (basic). A human shampoo will dry out your dog's skin and create flakes. In worst situation the dog may develop irritated skin rashes.

So only a pure dog shampoo is recommended for your dog!

Here are what you need to look for while choosing a dog shampoo...

While looking for a safe shampoo for your dog, you should keep in mind that your dog's skin has a high pH and needs special care. Look for a shampoo that contains soothes the skin, while enriching the coat and skin with soft and silky texture and is pH balanced for your dogs skin. A hydrocortisone shampoo would be a great choice - especially if your dog has a itchy and dry skin. Hydrocortisone - a medication that reduces dryness of skin, swelling, itching and redness. A good dog shampoo should contain all of combination of the following:

Natural vitamins A, C and E.

Oatmeal

Organic oil (Aloe vera extract, Neem extract, Citrus seed extracts etc.)

For particularly itchy pets, ask your veterinarian if a shampoo with choice.

Avoid picking a shampoo that has the following: 

Artificial Colors
Artificial Fragrances
Cocamidopropyl
Betaine
Formaldehyde
Cocomide DEA or MEA
Cocamidopropyl Betaine
Alcohol
Methylchloroisothiazolinone
Methylparaben and Parabens

 To conclude, picking the right type of shampoo for your dog is really difficult, owing to the fact that the buying intent gets greatly influenced by the marketing campaigns, as already said earlier! Hence have a very close look at the ingredients and type of shampoo that you have been offered. Not all shampoos marked as "dog shampoo" or "premium dog shampoo" may be right for your dog!

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Conditioning Your Dog To Grooming Sessions

If you are a pet lover and have minimum idea of how to take care of your dog, you probably know that grooming tops the list of dog care tips. If u have a dog and if it is well groomed then it represents your excellence of having a pet. Everyday care keeps your dog in good health, with healthy habits that gives a significant sign of elegance. Grooming is as significant for your dog as it is for your kids, which is why dog owners are expected to consider grooming their dogs for reason just beyond beautification.

It is necessary to maintain to a regular routine for grooming your dog, that should include brushing his teeth, bathing him, shaping his nails, cleaning wax in his ears, and brushing his coat to remove dead follicles and undo mattes and tangles.

It is not worthy enough to talk about the importance of grooming here, because it is expected that you already know why dog grooming is so important. We already know that dogs used to serve as companions of kings and queens in their castles as far back as over 4000 B.C. Documentations have proved that those royal people used to keep their 4-legged companions clean and well groomed. Further documentations have been discovered that establishes the fact that in France sometimes around 17th century a female Poodle was crowned with the honor of being official dog of Louis XV's court. She had been awarded the title "French Poodle" and used to be adorned by trimming coat, and clipping the coat with continental and English saddle clips, which still most poodle owners use even today. This proves that importance of grooming had been understood long back.

The question is what is expected from your dog while grooming? Is he expected to stay quite and still when the groomer – a stranger to him approaches with instruments and apparatus making weird sounds? If he is expected to do that, there’s nothing wrong in it. But does he behave according to what he is expected to behave like? Nopes! Problem is he is not seasoned to such situation where he is expected to quite even when he is approached with sharp instruments. He should be made to believe that there is not threat from the instruments or from the groomer. This is another kind of dog socialization that most dog owners overlook. Socializing your dog with different situations includes not only smells, sounds, strangers, rushing cars, other animals, but also to situations like grooming, which is most important. This can only be done successfully if he is trained since his puppy hood to control his cool during situations like when he is given vaccine shots and grooming.

There’s nothing like putting your dog to the serious obedience training session, and carrying out constant and consistent obedience training. This is again another grooming – that can be considered as behavioral grooming that teaches the dog how to behave what is expected.

What if you are thinking of grooming your dog by yourself? There’s nothing wrong in it… probably the best thing you can do with your dog is DIY grooming. This will actually keeps your dog at least less worried than dropping by a professional groomer with him. Trick is to keep cool yourself and make him believe that grooming is basically a fun session. Maintaining a light mood and easy-going attitude is preferred most. Creating a serious environment is going to make mess of things on the spot, because it will only aggravate your dog’s anxiety and increase his stress level, thereby degrading his threshold limit (ability to tolerate situations that he doesn’t like).

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