The Tail Of Bathing 6 Puppies (Pets At Home Puppy Shampoo Mildly Scented)

Member Name: FourPaws

Product:	Pets At Home Puppy Shampoo Mildly Scented
Date:	28/06/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Mild & gentle, cleans well, fresh smell, kind to skin/eyes, leaves fur soft & shiny

Disadvantages: Time consuming to rinse from the coat

*What is this Pets At Home Puppy Shampoo?*
This dog grooming product is produced by pet shop giant Pets At Home and is part of their own range of pet care products which includes food, treats, toys, training tools, grooming equipment, bedding, animal housing, health and safety gear, travel essentials and much more, catering for most domestic kept pets.

*The product itself*
For the past five weeks, the FourPaws household has been even more manic than usual and that is due to the fact that the normal canine head count has increased from 2, all the way up to 8! Now, before you write me off as a complete nut case and call the RSPCA on me for having an insane amount of dogs, perhaps I should explain!

The two original ones are, of course, my own dogs Grace and Benson who you have heard so much about, and the other 6 dogs in question are infact a litter of Collie cross puppies that I have been hand rearing and you may have heard mentioned in a couple of other reviews. Their mother died whilst giving birth so they were brought into work and seeing as it was my turn to hand rear the next lot of orphans brought into the surgery, they came home with me and have been here since, and will be for another 3 or 4 more weeks yet, until they can go off to their new homes.

With the weather so warm the past couple of days and the puppies, now five weeks old, full of energy- yesterday they all came outside for a little play around and their first experience of the outside world. Grace and Benson are both fully vaccinated and in good health, so with there being no danger of them passing on any illnesses to the as yet unvaccinated puppies, they too, joined us outside. However, within moments of being out there, Grace and Benson were leading the pups astray- getting them into bad habits already by playing in the mud! It was in an area I was confident no other animals had been, so entirely risk free, and they were all having such a lovely time, I didn't have the heart to stop them!

An hour or so later though, I was left with 8 rather grubby pooches! Now, Grace and Benson weren't a problem, the dirt brushes off them when they are dry, but for the puppies on the other hand, I decided it was going to have to be bath time for them!

So, with a lack of dog bathing supplies in the house, I headed off to Pets At Home to pick up some bits and pieces. I never bath my own dogs, so I have to admit the world of canine shampoos is rather alien to me and the various bottles stacked on the shelves was rather bewildering. I then spotted this bottle perched on the end of the aisle, and having used Pets At Home own brand products a lot in the past and having been really pleased with them, I popped a bottle into my basket and made my way to the check out.

The bottle I selected was Pets At Home Mildly Scented Puppy Shampoo, designed for bathing young dogs and has been specially formulated to be extra gentle and soothing on delicate skins, helping to cleanse the coat and skin, whilst at the same time minimising the risk of irritation.

It is pH balanced making it suitable for the young, delicate skin of puppies and has been specially created to help encourage a healthy, shiny coat and soft, supple skin, and being only mildly scented, it has a no tears formula, reducing the risk of discomfort should the product come into contact with your puppies eyes.

It is suitable for all coat types, lenghts and colours and is specially produced for dogs aged between 4 weeks and 1 year, although the gentle formula also makes it ideal for use on older dogs with sensitive skins.

*Packaging*
The shampoo comes packaged in a clear plastic bottle, in which the transparent blue liquid can easily be seen within, and with a silver label attached giving full details about the product such as ingredients, directions for use and of course, contact details for Pets At Home. Handily, the packaging can be rinsed out and recycled once empty.

*Price & Availability*
Being an own brand product, this shampoo is obviously only available from Pets At Home and can be purchased in one of two ways- either online from their website or offline from Pets At Home stores. Watch out for special offers as numerous times have I seen their own brand grooming supplies on various deals and money saving promotions.

A 500ml bottle will cost you £3.99.

*My opinion*
Anyone who agrees to become a Veterinary Nurse, knowing hand rearing litters of baby animals is in the job description, must be absolutely mental, I discovered that long ago. And after yesterdays antics my fiancé kindly informed with that anyone who takes 6 young puppies outside to play with two mischief making adult dogs, must be even madder! Well, that sorts out where I stand doesn't it?!

Anyway, after purchasing this bottle of shampoo, I headed straight home to the daunting task of bathing all the puppies! Arriving back home, I had a quick read of the bottle and the directions for use were all very clear and well presented, so with the bottle under one arm, and a wriggling puppy under the other, I made my way upstairs to the bathroom, armed also with an endless supply of towels.

Plonking Puppy #1 in the bath, I turned on the taps for just enough warm water to cover the base of the tub and set about damping the pups coat down with the water. When I was happy she was adequately damp, I reached for the bottle and applied some. The bottle, although reasonably large, was still fairly easy to hold and the cap was easy to open even with wet hands. Little force was required to dispense the shampoo from the bottle and with a small squeeze, the shampoo flowed smoothly from the end.

I applied a blob around the size of a 10 pence piece and began working it into the pups fur. The shampoo was rather thick, more like a gel in consistency but was easy to spread evenly around the pups body and it soon foamed up into a thick lather, it appeared to penetrate the coat very well, reaching right down to the skin and easy broke through the small clumps of mud on the puppy. The smell that wafted up was lovely too, definitely very mild like claimed, but certainly very fresh and pleasant.

After leaving the shampoo lather on the puppy for a few moments whilst the water from the shower head ran to the right temperature, I started rinsing her clean. The shampoo was reasonably difficult to remove and even with the water coming from the shower with relative power, it still took a good couple of minutes to remove all visible traces of shampoo. I wasn't too keen on this aspect of the shampoo, I'd expect a shampoo designed for puppies to be easy rinse-able as puppies are hardly the most co-operative animals when it comes to bath time, and I didn't like the fact I wasn't entirely sure I had removed all remains of shampoo from the coat.

Regardless, I took Puppy #1 back downstairs, placing her under the heat lamp to dry off and brought two of her brothers back up stairs with me for their go. Here, I started to get a bit adventurous, bathing two puppies at the same time, but they were relatively good, if not a little wriggly, so a small amount of shampoo lather did get into their eyes. Thankfully, it didn't seem to cause them any pain or discomfort whatsoever and I continued bathing them in the same way as their sister previous to them. Again, the shampoo removed all dirt and the small patches of dried on food/milk formula from their coats with ease but was still took some time to rinse clean.

Of the course of the next hour or so, I worked my way through the remaining three puppies until, once again, I had six clean puppies snoozing under the heat lamp! I left them to rest after their busy day of playing outside, meeting Grace and Benson and having a bath and then went in to see them later that evening.

I gave all the puppies a good brush through and their coats had came up lovely, 2 of the 6 puppies have rather long hair but even that was easy to detangle and the brush slid through with ease. All of their coats looked healthy and shiny, felt soft and silky and were incredibly clean and none of them seem to be irritated at all by the shampoo, not even the little girl who appears to have the beginning of eczema developing. All traces of dirt, food and milk formula had been removed form their coats and the faintest scent of the shampoo could still be smelt on their fur.

All in all, a very good product and one I would definitely buy again, should I have reason to. It smelt lovely, cleaned the pups coats well- removing all dirt and left their fur soft and shiny, as well as easy to brush. It was gentle and delicate on their skin and eyes and a little went a long way. I used a ten pence coin sized amount on most of the puppies, with a tiny bit more on the grubbiest pups and that was more than enough, I still have half a bottle left which I will use to bath the puppies again in 3 weeks or so, just before they go off to their new homes.

The only aspect letting this product down is the fact that it is so hard to rinse, but even so, that is just a minor problem and I'd have no quarms recommending it to any puppy owner.

Summary: A good, well priced puppy shampoo... perfect for all furry little trouble makers!