How to Clean a Puppy Without Bathing: 3 Effective Techniques

There are many instances where you need to learn how to clean a puppy without bathing!

Maybe they’re scared of water, they have a wound that can’t go underwater, or you just aren’t in a location with a good bath option.

No matter the reason, we’re going to dive into how to clean a dog without a bath. And, these tips will even help you keep your pup smelling clean between baths! These tips are for dogs of all ages.

And at the end of the article, we’ll also let you in on a little-known secret for helping your puppy enjoy grooming!

Let’s dive into it. 👇

Note: Puppies generally shouldn’t be bathed before 8 weeks old due to their inability to regulate body temperature.

When you’re in a pinch and need to clean your dog without a full bath, it can feel daunting…

Kind of like when you realize you need to leave the house but don’t have time for a shower and find yourself spraying body spray or Febreze on yourself, or maybe even rubbing your car’s air freshener on your clothes for a quick smell boost. 😜

No rubbing air fresheners on your puppy, so let’s look at some real solutions.

Generally speaking, you have a few main options for cleaning your puppy without bathing:

1- Dog wipes

2- Bucket/spray/spot cleaning with a rag

3- Dry shampoo

Trying to clean a puppy (or older dog) without bathing can feel complex at times.

Hopefully this article has helped you learn new ways to keep your puppy clean and smelling fresh, even between baths.

As a recap, here are 3 main ways to clean your puppy without bathing them:

1- Dog wipes

2- Bucket/spray/spot cleaning with a rag

3- Dry shampoo

Be sure to snag a bottle of our Dry Shampoo today. It’s made with unique ingredients formulated to remove excess oil and dirt, freshen your dog’s coat, and leave them smelling AMAZING!

Shop Dog Dry Shampoo here!

How else do you clean your dog without a bath? Tell us in the comments below.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is the perfect pup podcast.Helping you build a better
relationship with your pup presented by pop furred.
Hello, pop parents. And welcome to today's episode
of The Perfect. Pop up Podcast.
My name is Devin in this episode.
We're going to talk about ways to clean your puppy or older dog
without bathing them. And you might be thinking, why

(00:22):
would I ever need to do this forsome dogs?
They're just too scared or stressed out by it full baths or
being in the water. For other situations, you may
just need to be freshening your dog up between baths, or maybe
they just rolled in something oryou're not in a situation where
you can access and give a good full bath.
So we're going to dive into waysto clean your dog without a

(00:45):
bath. So, let's get right into it.
It's important to remember that for dogs.
Eight weeks puppies, eight weeksand younger, they shouldn't have
normal baths. They're not really good at
regulating their body temperature.
And so, if you give them a full bath, and they're not dried
properly, it can Two issues. And I'm going to mention that
the end of this episode, I'm going to give you kind of my

(01:06):
favorite hack, or my favorite tip for making grooming time
much less stressful for our dogs.
So be sure to stick around for that.
Another important point to note is that you shouldn't use human
products on your dog reason. Being, is that our dog's skin
and coat and their pH levels andall the different scientific
things that I don't necessarily completely understand are

(01:27):
different than us humans and that's why there are Our dog
shampoos and human shampoos and the chemicals, you know they
react differently for dogs versus human.
So just avoid using human products when you are grooming
your dog. And for all three of these tips
that we're going to talk about brushing should be a part of all
of it. Rushing is a surprisingly

(01:48):
effective way to clean your dog and just get rid of some of that
excess hair and even some dead skin cells and just help your
dog seem a little bit more freshand clean.
So the first way to clean your dog's, Without bathing them is
to use dog wipes. Bug wipes are available at all,
kinds of places and there are many brands that offer them.
But generally speaking, you wantto use one that is dog specific.

(02:12):
Like we mentioned before normal baby wipes, or something like
that, the chemicals and things in them are just not made for
dogs. You need dogs specific wipes.
You generally want to find ones that are hypoallergenic and
don't use things like alcohol isthose can try out your dog's
skin. Again, dog specific ones, you're
going to be fine and you just use that, you wipe your dog off,

(02:34):
you can rub them and clean off dirty areas.
People use them on pause on their dogs bum.
You know, they'll use them if they roll around in something
just to kind of freshen them up.What I like about the dog wipes
is they are convenient. You can easily throw them in a
backpack or take them with you when you're traveling.
The downside is it can get quiteexpensive just because the dog
wipes aren't super super cheap and every time you use it you go

(02:58):
through one and they can go away.
But a great option for cleaning your dog without a bath.
Another popular option. For, you know, keeping your dog
fresh in between baths or to give them a bath without water,
is to do kind of a spot clean, and you can accomplish this in
different ways, but generally, you're going to use either like
a bucket with some, some good soapy water.

(03:18):
I recommend using sudsy or shampoo bar, you can use like a
spray bottle with a you know, dog safe soapy solution.
You can even just use a wet rag with a little bit of soap on it
where no soap at At all and you just are going to kind of clean
your dog, rub them with that ragor spray the bottle on them.
And, you know, it's good to havea second rag or a second towel

(03:39):
that you can use to soak up any excess soap, also just to drive
them. So, it's important that you
don't leave soap on your dog if you're going to go this kind of
spot cleaning route because if you leave the soap on them, it
can irritate their skin, be surethat you give them a good drying
off and make sure that there's no excess soap and probably,

(04:00):
Most popular way. And one of my favorite ways to
clean my dogs without a bath is to use a dry shampoo.
If you're familiar with dry shampoo for humans, the concept
is similar, you know, you may not want to be putting shampoo
and conditioner in your hair every single day.
But if you get excess oil or thesmell or whatever it might be,
you might use a dry shampoo. And it's so similar with our

(04:20):
dogs, you are going to just brush them off again, to get rid
of some of that excess hair and shake the dry shampoo on.
I like to rub it in. My hands a little bit, just kind
of almost give them like a back scratch and a belly rub with the
dry shampoo. And then you want to give it
another combing to really get itdeep in there into their coat,
underneath underneath the coat rather and onto their skin at

(04:44):
pup food. We offer a dry shampoo that I
love it has arrowroot powder andbaking soda, which actually
helped kind of remove excess oiland dirt.
And it also has dog safe essential oils.
That smell really, really nice. And also have some Properties
that help repel bugs and insects.
So it's really, really easy to use.
The dry shampoo to help your dogsmell clean and fresh especially

(05:09):
between baths and that leads to kind of my bonus hack.
My bonus tip of how I've helped my dog's be much less stressed
during grooming and that would go for all three of those things
that we just talked about dog wipes, dry shampoo, whatever it
might be, or even normal bass and that's to use a lick mat.
Like mats are a flat dog toys. With grooves that you can spread

(05:31):
peanut butter. You can spread different things
even like a dehydrated food or are over-the-top per meal
Stoppers, just something that can be spread on top.
And then you can either give it to your dog as is or freeze it
to help it last longer and then when you're grooming your dog,
when you're doing these activities, you're letting them
just use that lick Matt. They get to lick it off.

(05:51):
It has kind of a therapeutic feeling for the dogs of being
able to lick something. Plus it tastes good and it's
going to generally keep them distracted.
And Help them, be less stressed.So as a recap three, easy ways
to clean your puppy without bathing them.
You can use dog wipes. As number one option.
You can also use a spot cleaningwhere you're just using, like, a

(06:14):
wet rag or a soapy Rag. And the third option that I love
is to use a dry shampoo again. You want products that are made
specifically for your dog and not for humans.
And I do want to mention as wellwith anything grooming.
Dated and anything with that might cause your dog stress.
You want to take it slow, you don't want to force your dog

(06:35):
into situations because then they're going to have a negative
connection to that. And they're going to be stressed
and unhappy. Each time you do that grooming
thing. And also you want to work on
desensitization. We have other episodes and full
write-ups. On the pup furred website about
the sensitization but it's important to take things slowly
and use things like treats or lick, mats, or choose to create

(06:58):
positive Association. Ins between the grooming that
you're doing and how your dog feels about it.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode.
I hope that you can think of some fun ways to keep your dog
clean. Even in between baths, if you
enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple podcast.
Follow us on Spotify, subscribe on YouTube and leave a comment.

(07:20):
And other than that, we will catch you on the next episode.