Penny Sanford Designs: Bath Time for Westies

Well, *fiddlesticks*!

I was trying to get in a post before midnight, and I just managed to erase half of my post. Fresh start:

We give the five Westies baths in the bathtub every couple of days and sometimes every day. Westies easily develop allergies to food or items in their surrounding. The stress our rescued Westies have endured in previous years leave them very succeptible to skin issues.

A bath with Epsom Salts not only kills any fleas, it lets their skin soak up Magnesium, soothes their little arthritic joints and dries up skin issues. Yes, Westie skin can dry with too many baths, but Epsom Salt leaves dog skin and human skin soft and moisturized. I don't know the chemistry of Epsom Sal+ Water = soft moisturized skin, but it works.

For these family baths, we've worked out a system.

I get in the tub (the Epsom Salt soaks are good for humans too) and wash the Westies in the tub with me. Gordon's role is to find, catch and bring the dog to me. They love their bath time, and they are SO playful when they are first out of the tub, but they also like to play Hide and Seek from Gordon before the bath.

These are a few shots of Lillibeth and Maisy getting their bath. From their expressions you would think I was torturing these babies. Not. Maisy Mae enjoys her bath so much that she tucks up her hind legs, props her chin on my tummy and floats in the soothing water. NO, there is not a picture of that!!!

This is a close up of the tatoo in Lillibeth's ear from the puppy mill. Charlotte has one too. All of the puppies we rescued from that blankety-blank puppy mill in 2007 had tatoos in their ears. They did not have names, only numbers.

This old deep cast iron bath tub with its butter yellow tile in the bathroom upstairs has become a Happy Place for me. These pictures, taken at night with the strong overhead light have such a vintage feel. They bring back memories of my childhood, playing with the plastic tug boats and yellow duckie. Somewhere we still have those bathtub toys. The yellow duck has a place of pride atop the towel cabinet.

More to share about the fabric binding on the wash cloth...in another post, hopefully tomorrow! If you are already my friend on Facebook, then you are ahead of my blog postings.

Happy Bath Bubbles!