Fall Cleaning

The fall shedding season has begun, as evidenced by posts in many of the Shiba blogs I follow.  Friday night I came home from work, didn't bother to change my clothes, grabbed the Shiba and put him in the tub.

The Shiba hates the tub.  Very very decidedly so.  The tail uncurls (quite a pathetic sight) and he stands there dripping and stares at me with accusatory eyes the whole time.  He refuses to move while in the tub, unless to make a lunge at escape.  Other than that, I have to manually move him around in the tub.  He doesn't resist my moving him, he just refuses to move himself.  I have a feeling some non-slip sticker thingies in the bottom of the tub may make a difference, but I sort of like it that way.  I think if he had more grip, there would be many more escape attempts.

Luckily, I don't have to bathe my dog that frequently.  Shibas truly are fairly clean animals.

My favorite dog shampoo is Tropiclean's line of all natural shampoos.  That stuff is awesome.  I first discovered it when I found out that my Sainted Labrador would have a reaction to any kind of chemical on his skin, including conventional shampoos.  He was fine with Tropiclean, and because it's so mild I could use it on all my animals, even my ferrets and my rats.  (Yes, I had ferrets and rats.  Long before The Shiba.)  It smells great, too.  Okay okay I admit it.. I've tried it on my hair.

While bathing The Shiba, it is necessary to remove wads of Shiba hair from the drain in order to keep things flowing smoothly.  I really should invest in a screen drain cover.

Bathing loosens the hair nicely.  A lot of hair comes out with a bath, which is why I did it.

I try to make The Shiba stay in the tub until he shakes a few times, but unlike my Sainted Labrador, The Shiba will not shake water off on command.  He stands, dejected and immobile until I let him out.  Then he shakes, and the bathroom looks like I decided to fling a full bucket of water around it.  Thick double coats hold a lot of water.  It's very useful to have a Sammy Cool `N Dry pet Shammy to suck up the water off of The Shiba (and the floor and the walls and the cabinets) quickly.

I sprayed The Shiba off with some Tropiclean Peach Kava  deodorizing spray and then I thought I had missed a spot of shampoo, because he got all foamy.  So I put The Shiba back in the tub (dismay!) and rinsed him really thoroughly.  Same thing happened again!  Then I realized it was the spray that was doing it.  So I actually put him back in the tub, removed the spray cap from the bottle, and just dumped it all over him, lathered him up again (that stuff lathers exceptionally well for a cologne), rinsed, and let him loose.

It seems like his fur is much softer than after a regular shampooing.  I think going forward, I"m just going to use cologne as a foaming bath wash for him and not bother with the shampoos.  We'll see how that works out.

I bet you thought this was going to be about housecleaning, huh?

Well, I desperately want one of these:

My mom has one.  Most.  Awesome.  Vacuum.  Ever.  I want this thing the way most people want fast cars or flashy electronics.  If I ONLY had one of these.  Life would be better.  Omnomnom Rainbow Vacuum!