Shampoo for white dogs.
You wouldn't believe how much I just spent at Arcata Pets, an online pet supply warehouse. I started out only intending to get a teething bone for Allie, whom I'm considering re-naming White Fang or perhaps Canine the Destroyer. It turned out that neither PetCo nor PetsMart carry any such thing, so I ended up at Arcata Pet via Google and as it turned out, I love their reasonable prices and astounding selection of things none of my dogs nor myself could ever possibly need and yet must have anyway. I don't know how to feel about this latest shopping expedition now that all is said and paid for. Does it count as a "retail therapy" splurge, and should I feel guilty as if I'd ordered up a big haul from Sephora? Or was it a necessary expense for the maintanance of three dogs, something that I should be irritated I had to shell out yet more money for, yet proud of myself for choosing to buy the dogs the things they need instead of the new fall collection from NARS?

I don't know. I did enjoy shopping on the dog website, and a lot of what I bought wasn't strictly necessary. Or rather, the basics were necessary, but I didn't stick with the basics. I never do.


We've always washed Sky in Johnson's baby shampoo, the regular yellow kind. She's small and goes in the kitchen sink every week or two for her bath (okay, it's supposed to be every week or two, but she transforms into a violent whirling dervish with sixteen arms and legs anytime water approaches her fur, so in reality we tend to let her escape with a dry shampoo and thorough brushing until she's simply so grimy and disgusting I can't stand it). Kerro on the other hand only has a bath about once a year, during the summer when I can hook her to the chainlink fence outside and rinse her with the garden hose. It would take heavy power equipment and a choke collar with muzzle attachment to get her within ten yards of the bathroom, let alone into the tub. As for Allie, she hasn't had a bath since she's lived here, as she seems to be self-cleaning like my oven. Her coat shakes off dirt and debris no matter how disgusting she's managed to become. Even if she's soaking wet and simultaneously filthy, which happens on a more frequent basis than mere chance should allow for, her coat simply dries itself off first and then proceeds to rapidly shed the crusting of dirt\berries\grass. Of course, it sheds it right onto the carpeting, which does not make my mother happy, but I suspect she'd be unhappier having to wrestle a rapidly-enlarging white marshmallow into the bathtub every week. Allie manages to remain so whitely luminescent despite her daily activities involving mud and leaves that I suspect magic of some sort, like a Valdemaran Herald's uniform!

That's been the state of things as far as dog grooming is concerned in this household. Now, Kerro has had flakey coat for a few months now and during the initial visit to our veterinarian three weeks ago, he advised me to bathe her in an oatmeal shampoo and rub a tiny bit of non-synthetic oil into her back in the spot where the flaking skin seems to be the worst. I used a homemade oatmeal recipe and some olive oil, and the flakes cleared up for maybe a week before returning with a vengeance. It doesn't seem to itch her or bother her in any fashion that I've noticed, and believe me, I've paid attention, but it bothers ME. She's always had a luxurious thick black coat and now her back is covered in scaley flakes. She has dandruff, damnit. It's not attractive.

One of the things I'm trying in order to rectify the flaking problem is starting everybody on Lipiderm omega-3 fatty acid fish oil supplements, as it's supposed to be excellent for promoting a healthy, shiny coat. When it was first suggested to me I dug out the bottle of fish oil stuff I knew we had in the back of the pantry from when my GSD mix Misha had sensitive skin problems, but it's years old and I don't trust it, and I'm also worried about the proper dosage because we free-feed kibble and I can't be sure how much everybody is eating. It can be a puzzle to regulate the doses of various supplements and medications and foods and treats and keep track of whose coat needs which shampoo, when you have a rapidly growing puppy under six months old, a two yr old adult, a senior, a 10 lb toy breed, a 22 lb marshmallow, a 60 lb big girl, and the different coats of a Yorkshire terrier, a Samoyed, and a collie -- all this with three animals in total! Anyway, as soon as I realized the Lipiderm supplement comes in capsule form too, I decided that's a much safer option. It's mainly Kerro whose coat needs the extra help as she gets older, but I figured I may as well give it to the other two also, since I want everybody to have healthy, shiny fur! We'll all be beautiful sexy girls with luxurious sheen to our coats. It's $22 for a bottle of 180 capsules, which will last for exactly a month with everybody taking it. That was one "necessary expense" in my definition.

Anyway, I called the vet about Kerro's continued flaking after she went in for her dental the other day, and mentioned how the problem returned about a week after she'd had her oatmeal bath and a thorough brushing and oiling. He suggested (kindly) that in addition to the fish oil I might try an actual commercial oatmeal shampoo designed for dogs with dry flaking coats. That got us talking about the differences in people\lobster shampoo and dog shampoo, and I mentioned that Sky has her regular bath in Johnson's for babies despite the important fact that she is a huge wild fierce beast and not a tiny baby. He said that's actually an excellent choice for wild beasts -- whereas dog shampoo is formulated with fur in mind and it's probably a better idea for collies and Samoyeds, Sky has hair, so the baby shampoo is suitable for her. Not ideal, but suitable. For Kerro and Allie, I should look at the vast market of dog coat products -- which his office doesn't sell, incidentally. I'd have paid much less attention if they did. For obvious reasons. I was indifferent to the initial suggestion of glucosamine supplements for Kerro's joints simply because the vet DOES sell those, but I researched online and asked around, including a friend who has extensive experience with the glucosamine and her senior dog. I found from multiple reputable sources that not only does the glucosamine often make a significant, noticable helpful difference for aging dog joints, but the quality of the stuff is important, too. E. said that during the months when money was tight and they switched their 14 yr old brown lab to the cheaper house brand of supplements, the difference was obvious within a week -- the poor thing was practically stumbling walking up a curb. I heard similar stories on my Yorkie list. The name brand of glucosamine (it's Cosequin DS) really seems to be the only one that's worth using if you're going to use it at all. My vet sells it at the same price as PetCo and PetSmart, but you can get it online for about ten bucks cheaper -- which is fortunate because it's still $30 a month for Kerro alone.

So back to shampoo. Dr. Mike thinks Kerro's flaking problem is probably simply due to her getting on in years and her skin and coat drying out, which the oil capsules should be very helpful for, but he told me that she should also be washed more than once a year. Not every week like Sky, thank gods, but maybe every six to eight weeks depending on how her coat looks and feels, how she's shedding, how much fur pulls off when brushing, etc. She should be washed in a gentle oatmeal shampoo and a conditioning cream rinse afterwards -- the bath and cleansing will stimulate the natural oils in her skin and the conditioner will help give her coat the extra boost in moisture and shinyness. I went ahead and bought a good brand of oatmeal shampoo and cream rinse for her. There were several to choose from, so evidently this isn't an uncommon dog problem and oatmeal seems to be the favored treatment.

On the topic of wet soapy dogs, I also asked about Allie the soft white marshmallow, and he said that as a puppy she should probably have a bath on a semi-regular basis if only because she's growing like a weed and her skin and coat are developing rapidly, and she's going to replace her puppy fur with adult coat. Also, if she's constantly rolling in dirt and sticks, leaves, mud, grass, poop, rainwater, chlorine, mulberries, and whatever else she can find, purely for reasons of sanitation she should be washed every once in awhile if she's also going to spend significant time on the furniture. Heh. Allie's coat is about as different from Sky's fur as two dogs can possibly be, so I revisted the shampoo aisle (virtually) in search of something suitable for use on marshmallows. As it turns out, there is special shampoo for white dogs. Yes, apparently if you're a white dog, you need different shampoo than black dogs use. Discrimination! Okay, so the white dog shampoo isn't a necessity -- unless you're a showdog, I guess. It's supposed to clean and brighten white fur and give it extra sheen and luminescence. I want Allie to be beautiful and delicate and feminine, and the cost of the white dog shampoo was only a couple bucks more than black dog shampoo, so I bought some for her. I also know from experience in battling Sky that it's completely impossible to make an animal hold still and smile at you while the hose is blasting near their eyes, which is another reason I chose Johnson's baby originally; it's the heavily advertised no more tears formula. Well, I saw on the website a tearless puppy shampoo, so I bought some of that to use on Kerro and Allie's happy faces as I'm glopping oatmeal rinse or white dog shampoo onto the rest of their spoiled diva selves. Then I felt bad that everybody had gotten her own special bath product and Sky only has cheap yellow baby shampoo, so I bought her a bottle of the same quality brand I picked for the others, a sweet vanilla-scented one.

This is I meant about the basics being necessary purchases, and yet I still managed to splurge. The omega-3 fatty acid supplement is very much necessary for Kerro's coat issues, but it was a splurge to decide on the larger bottle with 180 capsules so that I can give it to all three girls. For my $22 it will only last one month instead of the two months it would be good for if only Kerro were taking it. The oatmeal shampoo and the cream rinse are also necessary, unless I wanted to try another homemade recipe, but the first one didn't seem promising. Obviously, I could keep washing Sky and now Allie (and Kerro's face) in Johnson's baby shampoo. I didn't need the white dog shampoo and the tearless puppy shampoo and the vanilla shampoo. Those were splurges. I mean, my bathroom butler is so loaded down with hair products for every day of the week that it probably deserves a raise and health benefits -- so how cheap would I be to begrudge six dollars for Allie to have just one bottle of show dog shampoo that will brighten and luminesce her pretty white fur to its best advantage? She'll probably only have a bath once a month, so her small bottle of white dog shampoo will last half a year or more. Once I had picked out special exclusive products for Kerro and Allie, it would have broken my heart to wrestle Sky into the sink every week and wash her in cheap drugstore soap, as if I'm telling her that she isn't worth anything special. Sky is my precious baby. She's my tiny, my infant, the light of my life, my heart ripped from my chest and given bat ears. OF COURSE I will spend six more dollars for sweet vanilla shampoo for her so that she can be pretty and sexy, too. Since she has baths more often she'll go through her shampoo quicker, so I might not use it every bath, but she also only needs to use a teeny bit for her entire small self of fur to be thoroughly cleaned. I'll expect to simply play it by ear; after the first bath I'll see how quickly I'm going to end up needing more shampoo and judge from there how often to use the good kind.

As for the tearless shampoo, I added that to my cart because as I mentioned, the vet told me that while Johnson's baby formula is fine for Sky, I'm better off with a fur and coat shampoo for the other two girls. I think that's probably more important too when you're talking about the ears and near the eyes and mouth areas. The underlying skin is more sensitive there, and Johnson's baby shampoo is formulated to help with "cradle cap" in newborns (a scalp issue), so it isn't as sensitive and mild as the advertising would have you believe. The tearless feature has to do purely with the pH of the product being the same as that of the eyes; it's not because of super-mild ingredients. We're talking about one bottle of tearless puppy shampoo that will only be used for little faces a few times a month, if that often, so it seems almost stupid to take the risk of the cheaper stuff.

In addition to those five dog shampoos for various coats and colors, I also bought one bottle of a dry shampoo. I actually have a powder shaker of a similar product already, but it's intended for cats -- I bought it by accident over a year ago, having picked up the shaker of dry shampoo for dogs to read the label and then put it back on the shelf because the top seal was broken, and selected a different bottle which I didn't look carefully at because I'm an idiot. I know how dangerous it can be to use feline products on canines and vice versa, but this wasn't a flea and tick formula or anything along those lines; it's basically scented white talc that you sprinkle on the animal and immediately brush it out, theoretically removing soaked-up oils and dirt from the coat along with the powder. Still, I've seen Sky giving the evil eye to the shaker of powder with the picture of a small cat on there, and I'm almost out of the stuff anyway. It's not a substitute for a real bath but it does control the oil and impart a sweet fur scent, and it's useful for extending the time between baths. Sky's Yorkie coat and hair are extremely similar to what's on your scalp and mine; imagine not washing your hair for weeks at a time. She becomes grimy and oily and dirty very quickly, which not only makes her itch, but it's unpleasant having oily unwashed dog clinging to you like Velcro, on your pillows at night, no less.

Does it end there? Hell no. My last purchase from the dog grooming aisle was a small spritz bottle of what is essentially a leave-in conditioner for fur. I picked the smallest size and it was on sale, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered, but I figured -- what the hell. It will help keep Kerro's coat shiny and moisturized in between baths, and detangle Sky more easily when she's an overgrown mop because I'm too cheap to have her groomed more often than every three months, without the need to fight her in the kitchen sink for an additional five minutes in order to use a regular cream rinse conditioner such as the oatmeal one I bought for Kerro.

So: a bottle of fish oil capsules, special shampoos for all three girls, a tearless shampoo and a dry shampoo, and a bottle of spray-on and leave-in conditioner. Those were merely the dog haircare products in my cart by the time I checked out. What else did I buy? Well, the initial reason I'd been poking around pet supply websites was to find a teething toy for White Fang. She loves to chew up bowls of ice chips and whole cubes even more than my shoes or the newspaper pile, and she'll even gnaw the legs of the furniture if she's desperate. She's teething; it isn't her fault that her mouth hurts all the time and she needs to chew. It's my problem to provide her with appropriate things to chew on, and the bowls of ice have been nixed by my mother because she insists they make the carpet smell mildewy. Several people suggested I find her a special kind of chew toy that's designed to be chilled in the freezer before use, and I didn't have any luck at either PetCo, PetSMart or the vet's office, so I went online to look. I bought two fill-and-freeze nylabones so that one can always be in the freezer while she's gnawing away at the other. I was also searching for assorted other toys, anything "different" that she might choose as a favorite and actively prefer it over, say, my Allure magazine or the contents of the bathroom trash. She has tons of plush toys and rawhides that remain mainly ignored so I wanted to try more unusual items. I picked out some "biscuit ball" type kong toys where you fill the kong with a treat of some kind and it's a fairly difficult but not impossible goal for the dog to get the treat out in the course of playing with it. It's supposed to provide several hours of safe entertainment, claims the packaging. I thought maybe she'd be more easily occupied with something like that than with her normal stuffed shark or her Frisbee. I also bought a plush hot dog because it was in the clearance section and it has a squeeker (sic) -- Allie really loves her one and only squeek toy, but it's a rubber ball handed down from my GSD that's a bit too large for her to chomp down on effectively, and she loses interest when it's been a couple minutes since she was able to make it squeek. The hot dog is an easier shape to coax the squeeks out. I only hope this doesn't turn out to be in the same "phenomenally stupid ideas" category of buying a drum set or a xylophone for a toddler.

Let's see, what else. A rubber ring toy with a bell on it -- also a clearance item, and I figured, hey, a bell. She's never had anything with a bell before, maybe she'll like that. The last item in my cart was a book on Samoyeds; care, feeding, training, and overall breed-specific information. Clearance, again (discontinued closeouts rather, items that will not be restocked). I was shopping that section enthusiastically and saw two or three books about pet issues of various varieties, and then boom, I scroll past a page and there in between x-tra large kongs and parrot biscuits is a book called Samoyeds, reduced to four dollars, and it's the very last copy in stock. I thought that had to be a sign of... something! So I bought it.


All told, over $100 in DOG SUPPLIES. I don't want to think of the lipgloss that could have bought. Who am I kidding -- at Sephora, $100 doesn't go very far!