You Probably Don’t Need to Bathe Your Husky. I Mean It. Here’s When You Actually Do.
I used to bathe dogs weekly until I got a Husky and learned the hard way that you're supposed to—almost never. Here's when bathing actually makes sense, and the $12 shampoo that won't ruin everything.
The first time I bathed a Siberian Husky, I swear I could still find fur floating in my bathroom three months later. It was 2013, I was dog-sitting my friend's ridiculously dramatic red-and-white fluffball named Koda, and I thought, “Hey, he smells a little doggy, let's give him a quick bath.” Quick. That's cute. An hour and a half later, my shower drain was so clogged it gurgled at me when I flushed the guest toilet, and Koda was giving me a look that said I'll never forgive this betrayal while standing in a puddle of his own indignation and pawing at the bathroom door. I learned many things that afternoon. The first was that huskies hold a grudge. The second was that the coat I had just saturated with water and so-called “gentle” puppy shampoo would take approximately nineteen years to dry, and in the meantime it would smell not like ocean breeze but like wet sheep mixed with a hint of existential regret.
