Wiping down your corgi after a walk

[Cardiguy]

As we all know whenever it is wet outside, our corgis get their belly and their paws wet as we walk them. When the walk ends and we bring them inside, how good is your pooch regarding allowing you to wipe their paws and their underside?

(Now for the brags) My Ruby is perfect. When we come inside, I tell her "down" and she lays down on her side and turns a little on her back so I can wipe her belly dry with the towel. I then grab each paw one at a time and wipe them with my towel. Never a gripe or a pulling away. Of course when it is raining, as opposed to just being wet outside, I drape the towel around her head and body and just rub before I start with the underside and paws.

Is it this easy for others?

[Corgis'R4me]

Originally Posted by Cardiguy

As we all know whenever it is wet outside, our corgis get their belly and their paws wet as we walk them. When the walk ends and we bring them inside, how good is your pooch regarding allowing you to wipe their paws and their underside?

(Now for the brags) My Ruby is perfect. When we come inside, I tell her "down" and she lays down on her side and turns a little on her back so I can wipe her belly dry with the towel. I then grab each paw one at a time and wipe them with my towel. Never a gripe or a pulling away. Of course when it is raining, as opposed to just being wet outside, I drape the towel around her head and body and just rub before I start with the underside and paws.

Is it this easy for others?

************************************************** ****************
*~* Cardiguy,
I have carpet right where the door to my backyard is. IF...IF..I ever let my girl inside the house with a dirty tummy & paws---I would have a huge mess to clean up later !

I dry them OUTSIDE !

Sunshine flops down on the ground and complies to the cleaning. She is very easy going about it. She never squirms or makes any noises...so far.

Midnight kinda makes this sound, "humph....humph...". I take it as, "Okay, rub me down MOM.....get it over with !"

We do what we gotts do....to keep the house clean !!

right ??

left ??

*~* Nikki

[Chip's Mom]

Chip really enjoys getting rubbed down after a bath but if it rains or is wet, he isn't outside long enough to get wet.

[dcole]

Cardiguy, you are lucky that your Ruby is so well behaved.

When we are finished with our morning walk, Trevor knows that it is PLAYTIME (yes, I feel guilty about leaving him while at work, so I always indulge him with a few minutes of fetch after our walk ) If he got wet and I have to wipe him off, he thinks it is a game so he runs away, wanting me to chase him. I should probably be more disiplined about "downing" him while drying him off, but it is sooooo cute watching him wiggle and squirm on the ground while I towel him off. Bad pet parent, bad, BAD pet parent!

-Debi

[Jespah]

Rupert and Riley were trained to "flip" - I sit outside my apartment door with my legs straight out in front of me and then they take turns coming along side of me and rolling onto they're backs onto my legs. Riley was always very good about it but I think Rupert is very ticklish as he makes goofy noises throughout the whole ordeal and freaks when his feet are rubbed off. So far Jemma is good about being wiped down, but then she really enjoys a good tummy rub.

[Checkers]

Haha... maybe this is why I'm not known as a great housekeeper. I could have sworn the purpose of carpeting was to help absorb the water from dripping corgis?! You guys are telling me that's not right.. I'm supposed to dry him before he gets on the carpets?! The only time I bother to dry him is if I have given him a bath and he is just dripping... then it is a game for both of us... I rub him down good while he squirms and tries to escape so he can rub himself down.... on the carpet. Hmm.... I'm seeing a trend here!

-Cheryl

[Dillydoodle]

OH my goodness! What a great corgi thread. Some people with the long legged dogs just don't understand what those with low-riders go through! LOL!!

With Dillon, i trained him that when we walk in from a walk that he is always to wait patiently until i take his collar and leash off - and so i leave them on until after I have grabbed a towel or paper towels ( depending on the mud factor) and wiped him down. I did train him to lay over on his side to begin the wipe down.. He is usually great about the rub down. Though once, he decided that he did not want to just lay down so he crawled in my lap - soaked and dirty. I could not be upset- the look on his face was so cute, ears back and eyes as big as saucers!

I did a lot of research about the corgi before i got one- and noted that many people including my pup's breeder made special mention of getting them used to having their feet touched as puppies as many corgis dont care for their feet being messed with. So I started on day one with my pup handing his feet, sticking my fingers between toe pads, holding and playing around with his toenails and toes. He does not LOVE it, but lets me do what I want- I think he realizes that resistance is futile! LOL...So often, especially in winter i actually wash his feet first and then wipe them up as they do use salt in my neighborhood and he does not always wear is muttluk boots ( he hates hates hates them).

[corgimom]

Just saw a product in Drs. Foster and Smith catalog called "Paw Pro"

you spray it on the dogs feet before they go outside in the winter.It says it repels ice and snow and protects against salt burns. Prevents water from freezing between pads and snow from clumping on their fur. It says safe, even if licked.

Our roads are frequently being salted throughout the winter months here.

[Dillydoodle]

linda,
thanks for that info, i actually vaguely remember seeing that but dismissed it without reading it carefully- i thought it was another paw protectant that was waxy and did not work...I bought one last year that was messy and did not seem to work well, and i STILL had to wash his paws afterwards as he would track in wax on my wood floors and carpets. I will be looking for that product this winter for sure. I am sure being in Wisconsin you get a TON of snow- we get our share here in Connecticut but they dump a rediculous amount of sand and salt here, and oh what a mess it makes.

oh hey, by the way, regarding corgi's drying off on the rug, dillon does that after a bath..i towel dry him as best i can, then he runs all over the house as fast as he can ( air drying himself) and rolling around on the rugs - usually starting out with the running nose dive and onto his side, then his back, with legs in the air and wiggling his butt all over- darn if it isn't the cutest thing!

Emilie

[corgimom]

Emilie,

Cody does the same thing after his bath. I will be towel drying him and of course, he will shake, and then when I am done, he will run around doing his frapping thing and roll around also - very cute.

With the very first snow fall, even if it is a small amount, the salt trucks come out. Our cement patio faces North and becomes very slippery during the winter and we have to salt that also.This is the area that we go out for Cody to go potty.

[Dillydoodle]

ok "frapping?" can i get a definition of this...it may be what we call the "corgi crazies" where he runs around as fast as he can, chasing nothing, going in large loops - he looks like a rabbit when he runs fast, oh is he ever cute!

We have set up an area in our backyard for dillon for a potty- we have a deck and a baby gate that opens like a door where the steps are-then we have a short (3 ft black metal fence in a small area off of that with a gate so we can get into our back yard from dillon's pen. The pen is small, only about 9'x7' but he is never left unattended in it- it is not a play pen, only for doing business. He can play outside on the deck if he wishes...just not on the ground there becuase the few times he was left there for more than 10 minutes alone he decided that digging was a fun game, and made a mess of himself - this was when he was about 6 months old...Seeing as he has run of the house, run of the deck and is taken out twice a day for long walks AND we do take him out in the main yard for running and play time, he is fine. The only problem with the set up is that when it snows, we need to shovel the deck AND his pen becuase he is sooo short that if we are not on top of it, the snow is too tall for him to go potty! We dont use salt on the deck or in his pen, though we did buy the pet safe salt to use in our driveway- not that it matters much seeing as the moment we go for our daily walk, we are walking on sidewalks and roads that are not using any safe salt...In winter, we "wash him off" but throwing him in our clean snow in the yard -we make it a game, then we do the drying off ritual in the house - this toss in the snow cleans any salt or sand from his arm pits and undercarriage! It works suprisingly well.

Emilie

[corgimom]

Corgi Crazies, yes, that is what it is

I have to keep the patio shoveled for him. Some snowfalls, I could barely open the patio door because the snow would fall into the house. We can get bad wind in the winter time and then there huge are snow drifts right up against the door.

[Michael Romanos]

All my Corgis have learnt from a young puppy age, to wait by any door leading into my house so that they can be cleaned or cleared-for-entry before entering. The usual way of doing the cleaning is to lift their front legs off the ground and wipe each foot with a towel and then lift up their backs legs and wipe their feet. And then wipe underneath if necessary.

[CorgiMum]

Montrose does not enjoy being towelled, but tolerates it. Dylan is fine with it. I found that laying a towel out for them to walk on when the come into the garage/corgi gym starts drying their pads right away. And I will often use a good quality paper towel to touch/dry their bellies with as they stand. Dylan always managed to have a ton of road dirt on his belly, I've considered mud flaps attached to the back of his front legs.

And another product that I discovered is great for cleaning corgis is to have handy a canister of unsecented wet ones (baby whipes) handy. Pull one out as required and dispose of when finished. Great for quick touch ups.

And one more, did you know that passing a dry sheet over your corgi stops the dry winter static and keeps the hair from flying. Works on us too.

[Chip's Mom]

Barbara:

Those are great ideas. I will have to remember them. Thankfully we do not get much snow in TN but I can remember those Northern NY winters all to well. Anyway, Chip loves to be towel dried. I have done it since I first got him and after his bath, I place him on a towel and do a thorough rub down. He will lay right there and enjoy. Last night when I gave him his bath, in comes Maybelle halfway into the shower trying to rescue Chip and then when I was towelling him dry, she kept trying to put her nose between me and Chip. I think she thought I was hurting him. It was too funny. Chip wanting his rubdown and Maybelle doing all she could to prevent it.