Waterless Dog Shampoo~ Does it work?

     

Here are my two dogs. Daisy, on the left is the lively and spirited one.  I know you wouldn’t know from this pic!

Dixie on the right is our calm, docile one.

       As a dog owner of not one small dog, but two large Labs, it is a constant struggle to keep them clean and smelling fresh.  My labs are girls so they are smaller compared to their male companions that can easily be over 120 pounds.  Weighing only 70 pounds each my girls are still rather large to be indoors, however that is part of our crazy life.  Originally we had one lab in the house.  Then along came a stray that we decided to keep outside.  Well being black and hot in the summers I started to bring her in for a few hours in the afternoons.  Then suddenly they both were indoors full time!  I don’t know how that happened at all
     When the weather is warm and dry it is so easy to give the dogs a bath outside and they truly love it.  We then tie them up to the deck so that they can dry.  When it rains or is cold like it has been outdoor baths are not an option.  I have resorted to washing them in my bath tub a time or two.  That is a disaster though as I have to then wash the bathroom walls as well as the rest of the bathroom literally top to bottom to rid it of the dog hair.  Not very fun on my part.  We have them groomed from time to time, however that is an hour away.
    In my quest to make my own cleaning things like laundry soap, window cleaner and dishwasher soap I thought about waterless shampoo.  I knew there was a said product for people what about for dogs?  I found a recipe from The Krazy Coupon Lady.  You can find the recipe here.   Who would have thought that you could use cornstarch and baking soda to freshen up your dog? So does this really work?  Well, Joe and I talked about giving it a try and we finally did it.  I made the recipe and put it in a mason jar.  Joe punched holes in an old lid, making a large salt shaker looking thing. I recommend doing this outside as we did about Thanksgiving time.  The pictures are from today when we had to do it inside due to the recent frigid temps here.  The shaker worked awesome to distribute the powder over the dogs.  Then it says to leave it on the dogs for about 10-20 minutes.  Well, we thought that it couldn’t hurt to leave it on for about 30 minutes.  As you can see on the left we put them in their kennels to wait out that 30 minutes.  Once that time was up we used our FURminator brush to brush the dogs.  It doesn’t pull the powder out as I thought it would, but it did get most of it out.  
    So we then did the sniff test.  Did the dogs still smell?  NO!  I am so excited to report that this stuff does work.  It sweeps up really nice.  It works by clumping to the oils and dirt in the hair and then that gets removed when you brush/sweep the dog. I wouldn't recommend using this all the time.  I couldn’t see how it would replace an actual bath, however it is a great in between.
Give it a try and let me know what you think!