What is the best shampoo that I should use for my dog?  I can tell you what not to use, and we can go from there.  We often get told to use a all natural or gentle shampoo on dogs.  "Well I use a natural shampoo or a shampoo without soap."  

That is great at your home however, professional groomers will use shampoo's that will work with your dogs coat, and that is best for our skin; as we are bathing a lot of dogs.  It took Dog-a-holick awhile to find a shampoo, that didn't make our hands crack, and bleed.  Along with making sure your pet smelled great, and they were getting what they needed.  

Everyone at Dog-a-holick learns how shampoo works, and what ingredients need to be in your shampoo, for your dog to get clean.  

You need one of these ingredients to make your dog clean!  

You need a surfactant.  If you do not see this word in the ingredient in shampoo, you are wasting your time bathing your dog.  As they are not getting clean.  The word surfactant is usually the second or the third word in the ingredient list.

A class of surfactants called anionic surfactants such as sodium laureth sulfate, ammonium laureth sulfate, sodium lauryl sulfate, and ammonium lauryl sulfate are the primary cleansing agents in shampoo.

This photo is of a shampoo that one of clients wanted us to bathe their dog in.  If you read the ingredients, there is a hidden surfactant, that is made from Coconut Oil.  We chose not to use this shampoo, as we also have our skin to think about.  With the amount of essentail oil in this shampoo, plus the coconut oil surfactant, we felt there was way to much oil in this "natural, and organic shampoo".  

Which is something you need to look for in a shampoo, are there to much essential oils?  If so, the shampoo company is just replacing a cleansing agent with a oil.  Which means your not getting your dog clean, your just adding good smelling oils on your dog. 

What about Oatmeal shampoo.  We don't recommend Oatmeal because it actually dries your dog's skin out.  Think of a bowl of Oatmeal if you leave it out, what does it do?  It dries out.  You can use a Oatmeal extract, which is the base of our shampoo.  If your dog is itchy we recommend a Shea butter shampoo.  You need to add moisture back into the skin.