The Paw Spa

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I found a fabulous place to take Ninja for his bath here in my town. It's called The Paw Spa and it has self service dog washes.

I cannot say enough good about this place! The staff is wonderful. You don't need an appointment for self service. You head in, they put your dog in the tub and away you go. They also have grooming and will wash your dog for you, but it's a bonding experience, getting drenched with your dog, right?

Donna is the owner and she helps you through the whole process. My daughter and I are pros now, except last time I accidentally sprayed the water past Ninja and drenched my daughter and the employee washing a dog at the next tub. Ooops.

You start by combing out all the loose fur. It's warming up so Ninja is starting to blow his coat. I read somewhere it's a light thing, not a heat thing that makes them shed, but regardless, shedding he is, so the combing took a long time this past trip.

Once that's all done you use the sprayer to wash him down, then lather him up. They have these neat scrubber massager thingeys that you can use to get him good and soapy. He loves that. What dog wouldn't love two ladies massaging him and getting him all clean?

Then you rinse. Donna says this is the most important part. You take the sprayer and put it very close to the dog's skin and wash away all the soap. Then you wash his face with the blueberry facial. Ninja tries to eat this. I can hardly blame him- it smells heavenly.

After a good towel drying you clean his ears. Donna taught me that if you want him to shake the water off, just tickle the insides of his ears and he'll shake for you. Neat trick! It also means that if you don't get his ears wet during the bath, he won't shake. Somehow I always get Ninja's ears wet and I get drenched int he middle of the bath.

It's off to blow drying after cleaning the ears. They have dryers that don't use heat. It takes forever, and with all that hair Ninja ends up a huge fluff ball, but clean and shiny as can be. Finally we spray him with a little doggy cologne. We like sugar cookie best. Yummm. . .

The whole process take about an hour and is so worth it. And it's very reasonable! When we went to visit my MIL on New Year's Eve we took Ninja with us and visited the Paw Spa just before we left. Let me tell you that was a much nicer trip! Two hours in the car with a clean dog is easy compared to two hours with one who isn't so clean.

As soon as it warms up I'm going to take him in and have Donna's staff groom him. I'm going to have his coat shortened up I think. Yes, it's just beautiful, but with the amount of hair he sheds it's a bit crazy trying to keep up with it all.

So if you have a self service dog wash business in your town, check it out! Or if you live anywhere near Corona, California, come visit Donna and her staff. It's the best!