Gluten Free Dog Grooming Products

[beelzebubble]

hiya all,

anyone have any recommendations for gluten free dog grooming stuff? right now, i mostly need a conditioner/leave-in conditioner. every time i give my dog a bath i break out in a rash on my arms. i thought it was just because i'm a bit allergic to her. however, the last time, i read the ingredients for the leave in conditioner and there was "wheat protein" as one of the main ingredients. doh!

i've just spent an hour looking through the ingredients lists on amazon, and i can't seem to find one that doesn't have wheat or oats. any suggestions?

c

p.s. this may not be in the right place. sorry...

[Takala]

This is easy.

Use whatever type of product YOU get along with for the shampoo, just don't use very much of it, and rinse very well.

For the rinse, put a small amount of 100% pure apple cider vinegar in a big cup of water, at the ration of 1 part vinegar and 8 parts water. Pour over dog's body. This corrects the ph.

This is all you need to have a soft, tangle free dog dog.

If your dog's hair is really bad, you can use warm water and dissolve a little bit of coconut oil in it, just a tiny amount, and then add the rest of the water and the vinegar. Or put a tiny dab in your palm, and rub it into the dog's hair after towel drying.

Good hair coats come from good dog food. Is your dog gluten free, too ? To some people, that might seem eccentric or over the top, but if they had a 120+ lb dog that drooled every time it anticipated anything happy, and they were then rinsing dog dishes all the time and wiping up dog slobber routinely, they'd change their minds in a hurry. We have two part- bred dogs of the same breed, we we adopted from the pound, which both coincidently have a wheat allergy- I'm more afraid of their reactions to the wrong food, than mine. But their hair coats became really, really nice after switching to the kind of food that doesn't have wheat, barley, or oats in it.

[beelzebubble]

i tried your suggestions, and while they work better than no conditioner, they don't quite have the softening power she needs. she's a tibetan terrier puppy and has hair that's getting fluffier and longer by the day. as per the breeder, we give her a bath every 7-10 days with very mild shampoo formulated for puppies diluted 1 to 15 with water (really less of a bath and more of a rinse). her hair is happy and healthy, but it's really hard to get the tangles out without some sort of leave in conditioner. i read online to try rosemary steeped in water, I tried that and added a little bit of olive oil. but that's not enough either, she still tangles horribly. I'm hesitant to use people products on her because she has sensitive skin (ex. she'll chew on herself toward the end of her bath cycle, that's how i know it's time to rinse her again). i also need something that i can use in between baths, her fur needs to be damp for brushing.

any other suggestions?

thanks

[beelzebubble]

oh, and yes, she's on grain free food. we're thinking about doing a homemade diet for her, too.

[ravenwoodglass]

I use 'Perfect Coat' White Pearl with aloe and coconut oil, don't know if that might be something that might work. It is a combo shampoo and conditioner for dogs but don't know if it would have enough conditioning for you.

Maybe ask your vets advice also.

[Takala]

From what I just read this is a breed of dog with a haircoat like a schnauzer, which does not shed. With a schnauz, if you don't keep them trimmed, they will just slowly get longer and longer until they are impossibly matted. The means that if you want a certain official breed standard look to them, then you get them professionally groomed, but if you just want the dog to be happy, brushable and not a mess of mats that picks up seed heads constantly, you go ahead and give them a "pet" or "perpetual puppy" hair cut, which looks cute, but won't make the breed standard snobs happy.

My double coated Newf- cross bred mutt, which likely has some Great Pyr in him, is a long haired dog that does shed, and the only way to deal with it is to either brush him a lot with a rake type comb before the mats get going, or to selectively trim him, plus to go ahead and even *gasp* shave some of the hair off in the worst heat of summer. (When we got him from the pound, they had already shaved him because during his stray time he had matted up past the point of salvage. The hair grows back in just as thick and long.) The Pyr wooly undercoat gets caught up in the longer guard hairs during the seasonal transitions as it comes off, and this is nearly impossible to keep untangled. Everybody I've talked to with a dog like this, admits that they've gone ahead and given the dog a clip job in the warmer weather, because the dogs get so hot and we have such bad weed grass seeds out here in CA, that we have to be constantly checking them anyway so they don't get these things working in between the toes, ears, underbelly, etc, which cause nasty infections. This can vary from just selectively scissoring the underside, feet and legs (love the dog, but no animal needs feet that hairy) to going ahead and shaving them all the way.

With your dog, if it's still young and you aren't going to show it, you may want to consider going ahead and giving it a haircut, even if the breed fanciers insist you should spend an hour a day trying to keep it combed out so other people can look at a long haired dog which is high - maintenance.

[beelzebubble]

From what I just read this is a breed of dog with a haircoat like a schnauzer, which does not shed. With a schnauz, if you don't keep them trimmed, they will just slowly get longer and longer until they are impossibly matted. The means that if you want a certain official breed standard look to them, then you get them professionally groomed, but if you just want the dog to be happy, brushable and not a mess of mats that picks up seed heads constantly, you go ahead and give them a "pet" or "perpetual puppy" hair cut, which looks cute, but won't make the breed standard snobs happy.

My double coated Newf- cross bred mutt, which likely has some Great Pyr in him, is a long haired dog that does shed, and the only way to deal with it is to either brush him a lot with a rake type comb before the mats get going, or to selectively trim him, plus to go ahead and even *gasp* shave some of the hair off in the worst heat of summer. (When we got him from the pound, they had already shaved him because during his stray time he had matted up past the point of salvage. The hair grows back in just as thick and long.) The Pyr wooly undercoat gets caught up in the longer guard hairs during the seasonal transitions as it comes off, and this is nearly impossible to keep untangled. Everybody I've talked to with a dog like this, admits that they've gone ahead and given the dog a clip job in the warmer weather, because the dogs get so hot and we have such bad weed grass seeds out here in CA, that we have to be constantly checking them anyway so they don't get these things working in between the toes, ears, underbelly, etc, which cause nasty infections. This can vary from just selectively scissoring the underside, feet and legs (love the dog, but no animal needs feet that hairy) to going ahead and shaving them all the way.

With your dog, if it's still young and you aren't going to show it, you may want to consider going ahead and giving it a haircut, even if the breed fanciers insist you should spend an hour a day trying to keep it combed out so other people can look at a long haired dog which is high - maintenance.

our plan with her is to keep it longish, but clipped. she's just so freaking cute with her fluffy hair. we will do a fair amount of thinning as well. so far, she only has her puppy coat. when her adult coat starts coming in we'll definitely get her clipped down until she has her full coat. I don't mind brushing her a couple of times a week, since i need to rinse her frequently for her skin (and my allergies) and she gets well brushed then-one other time is no big deal. their hair is both soft and slightly coarse (the 2 coats), so it requires a conditioning spray to keep the hair from breaking or becoming damaged. i was hoping that someone would have run across this same problem and have a solution for me. ah well...

thanks very much for the replies, guys. right now i'm muddling through with rosemary steeped water with a teaspoon of olive oil in a spray bottle.

[mimette]

I didn't read through all the suggestions but you could probably use shampoo that you use and then use lemon juice or vinegar. I know vinegar cuts the soap deposits and lemon juice makes the hair soft and shiny. I use it for my own hair and it works but I'm not 100% sure about doggies.

[kareng]

I had a sunflower oil spray on detangler. Don't remember the brand. It's a human kind from one of those beauty supply stores. My sister has been using Suave products on her dog but her hair isn't fluffy.

You might look for some breeder or rescue groups for the breed. Someone might have a practical way to deal with it.

Witch hazel was something my mom used on my tangly hair when I was a kid.

[shadowicewolf]

with my toy poodle we've always used baby shampoo and then put a little conditioner on afterwards.

[beelzebubble]

after much research, I found out that mane n tail is gluten free and safe for use on animals. i've diluted the shampoo a lot and dissolved some of the conditioner in warm water to make a spray. it seems to be working pretty well.