Dog owners the world over love taking their pets out for long walks. Not only is it enjoyable but necessary to keep healthy dogs at the peak of their condition. But dogs being dogs, they love to dive into all kinds of muck and mire, and often cannot stay out of water – no matter how filthy it is. The result – one happy but extremely dirty dog.
Until now the only way to deal with this is to wash the dog out in the driveway, or, as many of us do, in the bath or shower. The drawback to this of course is dog hair everywhere, blocking drain holes and decorating the sides of the bath and walls, with a demented wet dog running back and forth while we try vainly to towel it dry.
Now, of course, there’s the dog wash. The genius who thought this up must have been a dog lover. It made me wonder whether he took a look at a car wash one day and somewhere a light went on. The latest self serve dog wash business, EvolutionDogWash.com features cascading lights, takes credit cards, and even allows the business owner to check in real-time on the dog wash system status and income.
The first dog wash machine was invented by Eduardo Segura and Andrés Diaz in 1998, as the Lavakan (http://witnessthis.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/strange-inventions-from-around-the-world/). The machine is loaded from the side and is allegedly a lot less stressful for our beloved pets than washing them by hand. Now that I don’t understand – I have to say that in my personal experience it’s not the dog that usually gets stressed but the owners themselves. The inventors claim that the machine has the same effect on animals that a massage shower has on humans. If that’s indeed the case, then one imagines the result is extremely happy and relaxed dogs. What better way is there for them to round off that fantastic walk they’ve just enjoyed?
This really is a great idea! No more blocked drains in the bathroom, or time spent cleaning up after bathing your pooch. One simply loads the animal into the side of the machine and the lucky canine had a nice rinse off with warm water, is shampooed by the machine and then lathered by their owners before being rinsed once again. There’s even a hair drier for the lucky things, with the whole process taking about 30 minutes.
One can envisage there being a huge demand for this kind of thing, with the machines springing up as welcome additions to self-service car washes, making the Spanish inventors Eduardo and Andrés extremely happy – and no doubt wealthy – people. In some facilities there are even ‘dog robes’, a kind of towel-like dressing gown that you can use to keep your dog warm in after its shower.
An added bonus is that various shampoos can be used, such as medicated ones used to kill ticks and any fleas picked up during the walk. The result of this is not only do you have an extremely happy and relaxed, pest free pet, but the owners can chill out when they get home and then perhaps take that much needed massage shower themselves, while their pleased and pampered pet sleeps off a pleasant and eventful day.
