Teaching Your Dog to Love Bathing, Brushing and Clipping

One of the obstacles dog owners have to face is the one where their dogs dislike any type of grooming being done to them. A lot of dogs do not take to grooming easily despite the fact that they love being clean. They often balk when they know they are to be bathed, they snap at you when you try to clip their nails and they move around a lot when you try to brush the tangles from their hair. How do you get your dog to love dog grooming? What tricks should you use to make them look forward to bathing, brushing and clipping sessions with you?

When you first decide to groom your own dog, the first thing you should do is to get your dog used to dog grooming and to make the experience enjoyable for them. There are a few ways for you to do this. One of the ways you can use is the role playing method. Start this while your dog is still a pup and is still very playful. Play with it and pretend to groom it with the use of an imaginary pair of scissors and with the use of nail clippers that you don’t really use to cut its nails with. Pretend is the word here so pretend to cut its hair and pretend to cut its nails. After your dog is used to the pretend phase of your dog grooming ways, you can then slowly do the real thing and your dog won’t balk when you do this because it will be used to what you are doing to it by then.

Another method you can use is the treats method where you give your dog treats every time they let you groom it. For example, when you bathe your dog, every time it lets you do one of the steps necessary for bathing it, like getting it in the tub, give it a treat. When it lets you rinse it, give it another treat. This will make your dog associate grooming with treats and with fun, making it easier to groom it in the future.