Hi there,

I’m afraid you all will think my question is absolutely silly at first, but please listen. I have a dog that has a phobia that is causing some problems. He is a good dog in every other way and I love him immensely. I have gone through a lot of training to get him over some of his hang-ups because he seems to be very high strung and was always a very mouthy, hiper-active pup, and he has (finally) started to become the good family dog that I want. He is only 9 months old and is a large breed dog, so he's really just a large pup.

The dog is deathly afraid of baths. I cannot figure out why. Something has to be done because this dog has a chronic stink problem to go along with his bath phobia. Giving him a bath is much better than not wanting to be in the same room as him! If I don’t give him a bath once a month he stinks so badly that we can’t really stand it. His fur is long and fluffy (he’s half border collie) and tends to collects things. Our other dog has short, course hair so he rarely needs a bath.

If the dog wasn’t so huge it might be an easier problem to deal with, but he’s at least 80 lbs. As it is, two adults can just barely hold him down long enough to get him wet, soap him up and spray him off as quickly as possible. He’s still growing, too and I think he has some German Shepherd in him so he might get pretty big when he's full grown. My question isn’t how to give him a bath; it is whether or not I should be giving him a bath. I’m afraid I’m making his phobia worse. This is not just another dog that doesn’t like a bath. A mania comes over him. He grows extremely violent, snarls, and tries to attack us. He looks utterly crazed and mindless, as though he were infected with rabies.

The first time we gave him a bath wasn’t long after we got him, when he was only 10 weeks old. I had to wash off some poop that he’d rolled in. I only used a mild baby soap and luke-warm water. He bit both me and my husband, drawing blood in his little puppy rage. The vet said that it is extremely rare to see aggressive behavior in a puppy so young. It didn’t take us long to figure out he had a phobia. It isn’t against water. He loves water. We got him a kiddy pool that he loves to splash around in come summertime and he loves running through sprinklers, but if you try to hold him still to soap him up and wash him he goes absolutely crazy! Holding him down alone does not trigger his rages either. I’ve held him down on his back and although he certainly doesn’t like being put into that position he does not freak out in fear. It has to be a combination of water and being held down.

Do you think he had something traumatic happen to him before we got him? He seemed too young when we got him for anything like that to have happened. He came from a farm and I got to see the mother and play with the pups before choosing him. The mom was a well-adjusted, friendly Border Collie. The father is unknown; it was a mixed father litter. I just wanted a friendly mutt who had friendly parents- perhaps indicating good-tempered puppies that would become a good family dog. I'm not interested in having a show dog or sporting dog.

We certainly don’t punish him violently or give him any other reason to be afraid. His only experience of being held down in water that we know about is with bathing, so I don’t really think there is anything we have done to provoke this. Our other dog takes baths just fine. Have you ever heard of this happening with other dogs? I have had several dogs and never have I seen this behavior. No one I know has heard of it either. My friends who own dogs looked horrified when I told them I have to muzzle my dog to give him a bath because he gets so aggressive. It makes me sad that I have to do this. I keep reading that there are no bag dogs, just bad owners, so I feel like I am somehow responsible for his strange behavior.

So, should I refrain from giving him a bath in the traditional way? If so, what other options do I have for bathing? Is once a month too often to keep their coat healthy? I know they have protective oils in their fur that need to be there. Also, do you have any suggestions as to why he might have this phobia? I thought maybe if I could figure out why he was afraid I could work on getting him to come to terms with it.

I can't give you any advice on what may have caused this behavior or how to cure it. However, in my limited experience I've found the type of food your dog gets can significantly affect his smelliness. The Pedigree brand is notorious in some circles for causing particularly malodorous poop. It may also make dogs smelly in general, but it's been too long since I used it and can't remember what happened to my old girl's overall smell when I switched her. Those of us who feed raw will swear that our dogs have little or no "doggy odor" as well as having better breath than most dentists. I never have to bathe my German Shepherd unless he's rolled or waded in something foul. So, one alternative to bathing may be to change foods.

Good luck, and I hope someone else can help you with the behavior problem.

I'm with Anita on the source of the odor* (inappropriate grain-heavy food, pancreatic stress trying to digest grains instead of meat, etc.), and about the bath: How about a shower?

Since it's not affecting life in general and might not be worth desensitizing, etc., maybe a shower will be different enough (not standing in water, possibly having a human in there with him).

In warm weather, of course, a hose is great.


*Check out what they have the nerve to call "Lamb and Rice":

Ground Corn
Chicken By-Product Meal
Ground Wheat
Animal Fat(Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols, source of Vitamin E)
Lamb, Rice, Natural Poultry Flavour
Salt
Dried Egg Product
Potasium Chloride
Titanium Dioxide
Sunflower Oil (source of Linoleic Acid)

Even if you are not ready for raw feeding (IMO the most appropriate food for dogs), there are many far better choices in kibbles. http://www.leerburg.com/all-natural%20kibble.htm

The commercial foods with the biggest advertising budgets are pretty much the worst of the lot: Pedigree, Hill's, Purina, et al. JMO.

P.S. Dogs don't naturally stink. I would put the smell problem ahead of the bath phobia on my priorities list (although I TOTALLY understand the problem, having met some stinky dogs).

If you do want to desensitize or counter-condition the dog to the bath and are willing to do the work, several members here (including myself) have done it with dogs who were phobic about such things as a wheelchair, skateboard, water in general, etc., and I would be happy to give you the details.

Here's an overview:
http://www.sniksnak.com/doghealth/fear2.html

Scroll down to "Fear of Places," which has suggestions similar to what you would be doing here.

All JMO!

I had a shepard once that had a problem with baths also, got him at 7 1/2 weeks and the first time I gave him a bath he screeched (like I was killing him). Have no idea why, but he would do that every time. Thinking about it now, it didn't take too many bath sessions before I begin to dread the thought of even giving him a bath. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it was my own feelings that caused the dog to continue with that behavior?

All I can tell you is that he finally outgrew the screeching when I gave him a bath or learned to accept it, not really sure which.

Good Luck,

I think you should follow Connie's advice (I always do ) but in the meantime, they do have deodorizing wipes available to de-stink your pup.

*Disclaimer: I have never used this or known anyone who has. I'd check the ingredients and if they're okay, maybe spot check like you do on laundry?

I agree with Connie about changing the dogs diet. I have one dog on kibble (Chicken Soup Brand) and she has a doggy smell. My younger dog that is on a raw diet smells (if I really sniff her fur , I can't smell it otherwise) like corn chips.

I've never heard of dogs having phobias about bathing, but maybe having the dog sit and you massaging her may get her used to being held down in a tub and touched, after she is perfectly fine with that then slowly introduce her to water on her paws and such.

Kimberly

I had no idea that the stink could be caused by the food he eats! Thanks so much for telling me!

There is something that is bothering me now that you mention the food... I have tried several foods with Garm (that's his name) because he is very picky. When I first got Garm I had him on Puppy Chow simply because that is what the previous owners were giving him and I didn't want to disrupt his diet, but then I started giving him this stuff called Nutro for large breed puppies because someone told me it would be better for him. Garm ate it for a little while and had horrible problems digesting the stuff- got really gassy and his bowls didn't seem to like it much either. I told the vet about it and he said that dogs tend to get that way when they switch foods so I should just mix his old food in with the new food to get him used to it gradually. I let it go on for a little while to see if he would adjust. He didn't. Eventually he stopped wanting to eat the stuff and would turn his nose up at it! That was enough of an indication for me that he needed a new food.

I switched him to Science Diet because that's what our vet says he feeds his dog and both my dogs seemed to really like the kibble and the canned food. After a while Garm started to turn his nose up at this dog food too. The package says that he should be eating 7 cups at his weight, but he refuses to eat more than 4 cups a day, plus a few tablespoons of wetfood in the evening. I consider the wetfood like desert- a treat. I'm wondering if the package serving size is not right. How much would you recommend feeding a dog who weighs 80 lbs.? He doesn't seem skinny, so maybe 4 cups is all he needs? It just seems odd to me because the dogs I have had of similar size in the past always had really hearty appetites. I certainly can't force him to eat more than he wants to.

Maybe this raw diet thing is worth a shot. I'm really worried that he's not eating enough. He's such an active dog- loves to run around and will play fetch till he drops. It's the Border Collie in him. He has to be walked twice a day or he goes out of his mind. I just can't believe that such an active dog only wants to eat 4 cups of kibble a day.

Our other dog, Vidar, would gladly eat Garm's share as well as his own if we would let him. Vidar has a really hardy appetite, for being such a chill, calm dog. He also doesn't have any stink problems at all. If it is the food that is making Garm stink, why doesn't it make Vidar stink too? I guess different foods would make different people's bodies react differently. I wonder if maybe Garm is allergic to something?

Well, thanks for the advice! I'll get back to you once I've tried some stuff.

Hi again.

You know how I was saying that Pedigree was (IMO) on the short list of the worst, most inappropriate foods for dogs? Well, Science Diet at the very top of that list.

Yes, you are right that some dogs do much better on the bad commercial foods (and they are not all bad) than others. But no dog thrives on the worst of them (like Pedigree), IMO. Some just tolerate them better.

If you search here you'll see many threads about SD and how bad it is. But easiest of all would be to choose a food on the Leerburg list (above link), order a book from Leerburg, or read up here on the board, or here: http://www.leerburg.com/feedingdogs.htm
or just start by reading the label on the food.

Your vet is recommending a food that he sells, right? That he makes money on? If you look at the ingredients list, you'll see that this food, along with the other cheap grain-heavy foods in most vet waiting rooms, uses grains in place of meat to make up the protein percents they claim. And grains DO have protein; the problem is that the protein is not the kind dogs are designed to digest. Dogs need meat.

However, to give your vet the benefit of the doubt, he almost certainly got almost no nutrition education at vet school, and what he did get was probably subsidized by Hill's.

Smelly coats and skin are just the tip of the iceburg of damage done to dogs by cheap junk foods, and the sad part is that the cheap junk foods are the ones with the glossy commercials and packages and brochures and the funding for the vet med schools' "nutrition" classes.

So you came to the right place. If I were you, I'd switch immediately to a food with more meat, and as little grain as possible, and then I'd consider reading about fresh raw feeding. You could get a complete education on the subject just from this board and the Leerburg main site.

I think you will see an immediate difference when you dump the Pedigree (and never even consider SD).

P.S. I hope you don't feel overwhelmed. You came with a bath question and look what you got! :>

But I'll bet that your stinky dog smells because of his food. It's the most common reason, along with yeast infections (which are also generally related to cheap grain foods) for bad dog smell.

This is all JMO.

But I've been studying canine nutrition and allergies for a long time. This forum has many members who know a lot about canine diet. Again, you came to the right place.