Many people assume that dogs hate being groomed. This is not anywhere near the case. In fact, some dogs can actually learn to love the experience and look forward to it. It’s all in how you handle it and condition them to feel about it.

A positive experience is relished while negative experiences are remembered and despised. This article will explore some of the ways in which grooming can go more smoothly as well as teach you how this time can help you to bond with your dog through grooming.

That human and dog bond can make things peaceful and stress-free in all areas of your life. Once you learn how to bond with your dog to make giving them a dog bath a piece of cake, you will wonder how it could have been so easy all of this time.

Conditioning Their Mind Before You Try To Condition Their Coat

The human-dog bondis one that has been in existence for thousands of years. Dogs became dependent on man, who hunted and gathered as he lived an often nomadic life. This began to form a bond and perhaps our ancestors realized that the dogs could be helpful in alerting to intruders and animals that could be dangerous. Dogs got fed. It was a win-win. 

Today, we can use this opportunistic behavior pattern to help them learn what we’d like them to do. We call this conditioning and it is a big part of training them.

When it comes to how to groom a dog- the experience has to be made into a positive experience so they will want to repeat it. Have a food item handy that they never get any other time, except when it is time to groom.

Grooming includes giving a dog bath, trimming dog nails,checking dog’s ears, and trimming around their anus if they have long hairs that get messy with poop. You should also include checking their teeth as part of this grooming ritual.

If you do this practice with your dog on a daily basis, all grooming becomes easier in time and suddenly you will be an expert at how to take care of a dog.This is also fantastic information for how to bond with a puppy from day one.

Trimming dog nails takes a bit of practice and if you start with a puppy, it might be easier too. They already have short nails to start with and just removing the tips that are sharp every week will get you both in good practice.

With practice, you’ll be teaching other people what it takes to be an expert on how to bond with your dog. Starting with the nails is a good way to begin.

Start by offering your pup or adult dog some peanut butter at the bottom of a cup. Make sure that this is healthy peanut butter without sugar or xylitol added to it. The latter is very toxic to dogs.

When they have their face buried in the cup, start playing with their feet and get them used to having their feet handled. If they pull their paw away or get upset, then you pull the peanut butter away.

Repeat this exercise over and over until your dog stands and lays down without a care in the world while you do what you want to their feet. Massage the pads, touch the area between the toes, and begin to hold their nails and wiggle them.

When there is zero response from your dog, it’s time to use the clippers and just take the tip of the nail. Speak to them in a calm tone as you are doing their nails. Be reassuring. While there are many ways to learn how to groom a dog, the gentle way is by far the best for both of you.

You’ll also find that when it comes to how to bond with your puppy, this grooming time is the best and fastest way. You see, in the dog world, the individual higher in social status has the right to groom underlings. This is the way packs work.

Therefore, a puppy will be willing to have you do grooming easier than an adult dog most of the time unless you’ve already worked with that adult dog. Learning how to bond with your puppy is as simple as picking him up and holding him until he stops wiggling and then putting him down.

This teaches him that you can be trusted and the sooner he relents, the sooner he gets down. It also establishes you as someone who is clearly a higher ranking than he is. Gradually build time. Pretty soon, he’s happy to lay on his back in your arms and fall asleep. He’ll love being groomed like this.

This is a true bonding situation. This is also the key to how to take care of a dog forever. Bond with him. Love him. Show him that you are trustworthy and will treat him with compassion and fairness.

Getting Them Wet

When it comes to how to bathe a dog and how often to bathe a dog, the best thing to do is to go slow and not very often. Most dogs don’t need a bath more than once every six weeks. More than that can dry their skin and coat. While getting really dirty at a dog park or during the rainy season can affect how often to bathe a dog, a good goal is one time every six weeks. Try using pet wipes in the period between.

Introduce them slowly. Use a little warm water, but not too warm. No one likes a cold bath! Using a hose with cold water is not how to bathe a dogproperly. This scares puppies and they don’t regulate heat well so they will become dangerously cold.

An adult dog could become frantic. Warm water is soothing. Use a tub without running water. The noise can be scary. Use just enough to get their feet wet and feed them peanut butter from their cup. Go slow and eventually they will hop right into the tub on their own, allowing you to do whatever you need to do.