My experience at Dirty Dawgz Self Service Dog Wash in Dallas

Since the weather has turned cooler, getting out in the back yard with a hose to wash Lacy doesn't look very appealing. She really needed a bath, though, and other people at the dog park have told me about a place down at Preston and Beltline called "Dirty Dawgz" where they have equipment to wash your own dog indoors. It's cheaper than having someone else do it and there is warm water and climate control. So, after the Cowboys narrowly defeated the Chiefs in overtime, Lacy and I got in the van and drove over there.

We were pleased to find when we arrived that there was only one other person washing their dog at the moment, so we wouldn't have to wait for a tub. The nice lady brought cleaned the tub from the last customer and lacy hopped up into the tub and was secured by a loop around her neck latched to the front of the tub. The lady brought me a fur comb to start combing and told me that it was a Furminator. Well, it wasn't a Furminator, but rather a knock off. It wasn't pulling any fur off of my very furry Golden Retriever, so I asked if she could bring me the actual Furminator I had spotted on a table across the room. (We have a Furminator at home and use it regularly.) The Furminator wasn't doing any good either so I examined it more closely and found that the teeth were all bent and dull. I'm sure it had been used constantly over an extended period of time and had just seen better days. Note to self: bring your own Furminator from home next time.

So then the nice lady came over and showed me how the sprayer worked. You can either spray just warm water, water with shampoo, or water with conditioner. Since Lacy has a significant itching problem, I opted to pay $3.00 extra for the little bottle of oatmeal shampoo. As I went to squeeze some shampoo onto my hand to soap her up, I was dismayed to find that what was in the bottle was significantly watered down. I closed the bottle and shook it up well and tried again. Still water. I called the lady over and let her know that my bottle contained basically water. She explained to me that the shampoos were professional grooming shampoos and that they were supposed to be watered down. Whatever. I still needed to soap up my 70 pound sweetheart and water was not doing the trick. I walked over to the table and grabbed another bottle that was labeled "Anti Itch". The lady informed me that that shampoo would be another $5.00. I told her, "Whatever, there wasn't enough shampoo in the other one." This next bottle had the same problem. By the time I had emptied the mostly water onto her, she still didn't have a good lather going. The lady finally brought over the big gallon bottle of the original oatmeal shampoo and let me have some of the undiluted stuff so I could finish soaping her up. Note to self: Bring your own shampoo next time.

I scrubbed her for a good long time because she loves it. Finally I started rinsing her with the lovely warm water. I rinsed and rinsed until all of the soap was out. Then, I took one of the little microfiber towels that the nice lady had provided and started drying her off. I noticed that the towels smelled a little "industrial" for my liking. (I'm very smell oriented and this probably wouldn't be an issue for most people.) I'm sure they have to wash those towels over and over and there are probably health department rules about how they must be sanitized. Note to self: Bring your own towel next time.

Lacy hopped down from the tub and the nice lady brought to our attention that there was doggie perfume that I could choose from, so I picked a nice scent and sprayed it on her. We paid and came home. Lacy didn't scratch herself at all for several hours, so I'm very pleased about that and can tell that I'm going to have to continue bathing her frequently throughout the winter months.

Since it looks like this is going to be a regular part of our schedule, I did an exhaustive search to see if there was anywhere else that was less expensive. What I found was that Dirty Dawgz is the best bargain in dog washing in the Dallas area. There were other facilities, but they were much further from my house and generally at least a dollar or two more expensive. I looked into having her washed at a dog grooming place and, goodness, that's a racket!

Also, I found a website to purchase the professional dog grooming shampoos. They indeed did say that they could be watered down 16 to 1. I'm still going to take my own shampoo though, and I do think this is one area they could improve.

Overall it was a good experience and we'll be back!