New to this forum and also a new Chessie owner.
My husband and I are the parents of Cooper, a
4 month old Chessie. My question is what is the best product to use when bathing. It seems that what I have used has caused his skin to be dry and flaky. He has only had 2 baths. We live in the Catskill Mts. of N.Y. where we have 4 seasons.
His diet consists of Iams lg. breed formula for puppies, 1 tbs. linatone and brewers yeast, and o.k. an occassional treat of human food.
I don't feel like he has been over bathed but with his constant swimming in our pond, he sure
does get pretty rank. So can any of you professional Chessie owners give me some advice.
I will add that as Cooper being our first Chessie,
he has been an absolute blast.

Thank you
Coopers Mom, Kathy

You should wash your dog with Murphys Oil Soap (a few ounces per gallon of water). The best thing about it is that it has a odor masking aftersmell that is easy on the nose.

To keep smells down when a dog is in the water all the time, just try rinsing off when he is done swimming. Use clear clean water (from the hose or in the tub) and just rinse the smells off. Don't use shampoo for these rinsings.

Your pup has two things going on right now. 1) he is starting to grow in a more mature coat (juvenile coat, rather than puppy coat), which will sometimes make their skin flaky. 2) he is probably teething, which also sometimes throws their body chemistry off and can cause flaky skin.

I agree with Mike, Murphy Oil Soap is a good thing to bathe with, as it is gentle, smells good and still leaves a fine layer of oil on the dog, which you want! Might I also add that, while he has "only" had two baths so far, since he is only 4 months old, that means you must be bathing him every month. This is way too much to be bathing a Chessie. You will find that brushing his coat regularly and rinsing him off with clean water after every swim will help keep him clean. To give you an example, my dogs get brushed once a week, and I bathe them 1-2 times a year, yet you would not find their odor offensive, even though we do field work several times a week.

Lisa

Lisa,
Thanks so much for answering my post. I will definitely be following your advice, Will also try the Murphys the next time he gets a bath.
(like in 6-8 months). He gets brushed regularly but I was afraid that the product I had used on him was his cause for his skin flaking. He is definitely a juvenile and has lost all but his canines. He is only 4 months and his last weigh- in at the vet was 52lbs. The vet was really pleased to see how outgoing he was and incredibly friendly.
We have worked hard on socializing him.
Once again thanks for your advice and I certainly hope I can come back with any other questions I may come across.

Kathy

Mike;
Thanks for the post. I can honestly say I never heard of using Murphys. Will try using that the next time.

Kathy

We have a 2.5 year old Chessie rescue (we've had him for 8 months). He's had several allergies/skin rashes with scaling and one time hair loss. He's had a course of steroids from the vet as well as medicated shampoo. (He swims in our pool and at the ocean, he eats canidae dog food).

We now bath him weekly to cover his itching and scaling. Any ideas????

Stop letting the dog swim in the swimming pool. The chlorine in swimming pools is extremely harmful to dog skin. It can cause dryness which then leads to opportunistic infections because the skin is not healthy enough to fend off invaders like bacterial or fungal skin parasites.

Has your vet done anything other than just give steroids? All that does is treat symptoms; it does nothing to get to the cause of the problem. You may want to have skin scrapings, culture-and-sensitivity tests, and fungal cultures done on this dog. A thyroid test would also be a good idea. Bathing weekly will only add to the skin's dryness, causing a vicious cycle. If your vet is unwilling to do these tests for you, look for another vet, one that will actually try to help you cure your pet, rather than just sell you pills and shampoo!

Lisa

Our lab and chessie go for a long swim at least once a week. We alternate between rinsing and bathing (bath every other week). I suspect a lot of people would suggest this is too often, but both of their coats and skin seem fine. Never irrirated, not dry.

They are both indoor dogs and are allowed to get on furnature and the bed, etc. They don't have to winter outdoors or anything. So far this has been a reasonble frequency. Perhaps if they had to spend a lot of time outdoors we would be more concerned about the need for oil build up.

We simply use normal dog shampoo and they only get one sudsing per wash. We have tried various shampoos and haven't noticed a big difference between brands.

-john