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As much as we love our dogs…
love is not all around us when they’re stinky wet.

Weirdly, A British scientist who is an expert in odours, describes wet dog odour as a combination of almond, fruit, honey, and mushroom. Although he added however, that the scent also includes faeces and sulphur among its scents.

It’s not actually your pooch that whiffs, its microorganisms that live on his body all of the time. The American Kennel Club explains that bacteria and yeast, are always present on dogs. These microorganisms leave behind micro excretions and when your dog gets wet, the moisture evaporating from the dog has some of these compounds within it.

Breeds that smell particularly bad

When it comes to the wet dog odour, some breeds are going to smell worse than others. The hound group trumps, as they have more sebum in their coats than other breeds. While sebum, an oil, protects the dog’s skin from drying out by collecting on hair shafts, it also exacerbates the bad smell when oil and water start not mixing. Instead, the oil and water combo creates more bacteria to make the dog smell worse.

Golden retrievers are particularly stinky, this is because they have a thick undercoat which gets very oily.

Life hack

Regular bathing with blow drying at the groomers will keep the microorganisms at an acceptable level so when they do get wet at home, the stench won’t be quite so bad.

How can that wet whiff go away

The only way to prevent that wet dog smell would be to never let them get wet. This obviously is not realistic, they still need to go out for toilet and walks even if its raining… Ans who would want to deprive their furry friends from having fun splashing around in streams and puddles?

The only way to combat the smell is ensure when your dog gets wet they are dried thoroughly all the way through. Yup this means blowdrying, a towel just aint going to cut it.

Do labs shed?

Life hack

Keeping a long coated dog clipped short will speed up the drying process especially if towel and air drying . Even keeping their feet and feathering trimmed short will help especially in those winter months

Long-haired breeds may smell worse when wet than shorter-haired dogs because they tend to collect more potentially stinky items in their coats too. That includes poop around the rear end, and perhaps bits of food under the chin and on the chest. Clipping such dogs, especially in warm weather if they like to swim, may reduce wet dog odour.

Ultimately, all the bathing in the world isn’t going to evict your dog’s tiny tenants, but you wouldn’t want to. The normal resident population of the skin is part of what keeps it healthy.

Life hack

You can try to help mask the doggy smell when they get wet. There are doggy perfumes and deodorisers that can be sprayed onto their coat which will evaporate along with the other smells.

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