Hair dryer
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| you can, just use a cool setting. Eventually there will be too much dog and hair for it to be real practical. Most either get their own dryer or go to a groomer or a self-serve grooming place that has one. |
krhodeoes wrote: Is it safe to use a regular hair dryer after bathtime or do I need to invest in a special one? Be VERY careful if you use a human dryer... they get REALLY hot and can burn a dogs skin. I invested the money in a standing dog dryer. And so far, since I do all my home grooming on two dogs, it was WELL worth the money. It's quiet, it allows me to be hands free, it's easy to change the angle on the hose to get dry every part of my dog, and it's a warm air and not hot. If you are going to do your own grooming, I would highly recommend putting the money into a dog dryer. |
krhodeoes wrote: Is it safe to use a regular hair dryer after bathtime or do I need to invest in a special one? Well that really depends on how you define safe! A regular "human" hair dryer will work, it probably won't fail in a spectacular manner and they are relatively cheap. However they are far from ideal. They are in general too hot to dry our dogs properly causing skin flushing and even burning if not used carefully, the air velocity is too high causing skin irritation, dryness and in some cases even "windburn". And strange as it may sound after those two criticisms they generally don't have enough power to do the job in a decent timeframe. Plus you have to hold them with one hand which really compromises your ability to brush out your Bobtail as you dry him/her. They are noisy and over the couple of hours, or more, that it takes to properly/thoroughly dry a fully coated Bobtail that is a huge issue! There is no way around it, a proper dog dryer has a big "buy in" cost but once you can get around that they are well worth every cent you will spend. In every respect they are far, far, far superior than even the very best of "human" hair dryers. Their air flow temperature and velocities are properly matched to the requirements so the dog's hair does suffer heat damage and the skin does not suffer "windburn". They are much more powerful, typical human hair dryers are in the 800-1200 watt power range whereas my Oster dryers are 1650 watts. (1650 watts is pretty much the limit for a 110 Vac 15 amp circuit, so much so that in fact for my new grooming room I have installed two 20 amp circuits for my dog dryers - yes plural circuits because I have and simultaneously use two of them. The heavier circuits give me a greater level of safety and psychological comfort.) Dog dryers are self-supporting so both of your hands are free to groom and they are much quieter which greatly reduces the level of stress involved for both the dog and the groomer. And perhaps the greatest advantage of a dog dryer is it's service life longevity. When my family first got our Afghans in the early 70's we "plodded" along with reasonable quality human hair dryers for a couple of years. Mom and I would each have a dryer and we would work away for a couple of hours until either we or the dog said "enough is enough", so even if they weren't quite dry that was it. And did we ever go through dryers! At the time $40.00 was a lot of money and we went through at least 6 a year, some of which failed in a rather exciting way. (A fan motor failure while the element continues to work really gets your attention in a heartbeat!) I estimate that we were lucky to get 30 hrs of service life out of a human hair dryer which would represent about 7-9 dog dryings. Most people will tell you that dryers last them years, not months or weeks like my experience. But remember that people only use their hair dryer for perhaps 15-20 minutes at at time, often less. That use is within their designed "duty cycle" whereas the extended sessions drying a dog well exceed their designed use and causes early failure in terms of both service life hours and estimated calender life. A "proper" dog dryer will serve you for literally thousands of hours even when drying sessions last for 3 to 4 hours, sometimes more. Our Oster dog dryers were purchased in the mid 1970's and have given me untroubled service for over 30 years. I estimate that over that time I have completed some 1100 dog baths and dryings. Drying averages 3.5 hours. Throw in untold "spot drying" sessions when the dogs needed their feet dried after walks during summer rains or winter snows and "touch-up' cleanings of dirty feet, upset tummy butts, etc., total service life of my dryers easily exceed 6000 hours each. The first one finally died last fall - the heating element failed and no replacements were available - and the second while still working is becoming ineffective as the heating element has become very weak and the fan is moving much less air than when new. Oster however, as always, has come through for me! For current owners they have a factory rebuild exchange programme where you send back your old dryer and for a relatively low cost they will exchange it for a factory refurbished unit. It took less than 2 weeks, inclusive of shipping time, to get my first one replaced last October and I am shipping back the second one literally today. Don't discount the "refurbished" units either. The one I received is indistinguishable from a brand new one in your local grooming supply store. It is absolutley excellent in appearance and most importantly in function. If you haven't "caught on" yet I do very strongly recommend getting a dedicated professional quality dog dryer at your first opportunity. For most people a quality dog dryer will be a once in a lifetime purchase if you take proper care of it and perform routine cleaning and maintenance. Very few private groomer need to replace dryers, I would bet that including breeders less than 12 members of this forum have ever had to replace a quality dog dryer that they have purchased new. I have posted about dryers frequently, just do a search and you'll find many a "treatise" on them from me. Hopefully those posts and threads will give you all the information you need to decide on which way you will proceed. Finally, yes I strongly recommend the Oster brand due to a lifetime experience of flawless and reliable service. I have no association with nor do I receive any payment in any form from the Oster Corporation. These are my personal opinions and recommendations only. Thanks and Cheers Carl |
| on another note..... I take Bella do a do it yourself place that has those great dryers. I am lucky that this place only charges based on the weight of the dog so I only pay 25$ to wash and dry her. Some places I have heard charge by the time which would be crazy since they take so long to dry. I will probably run the numbers but 25$ once a month or every other month will start to add up. I have already been debating about getting a dryer but I also love the wash tubs that they have at those places. I don't know how much those dryers cost but I am sure that in the long run I would be saving money if I washed and dried Bella at home and bit the bullet and got a good dryer. |
| To get a good stand dryer you are talking well over $300.000. A more portable one (canister style with a hose) probably $175.00 & up. I have both. They have paid for themselves 10 times over. |
| i still use a hand dryer on billy even though his hair is now 10" long. he was a rescue and has had issues with everything else. i try to intoduce different things but his happy with the hand dryer so thats it. i use a treseme 2500w dryer. the most powerful one i can find, and have it on the cool setting. it takes about an hour to dry him now. it doesnt help as he tried to catch the floating hair! i am a groomer, and for anyother dog they get the blaster in the bath, then i use the blaster with no nozzle to finish as i dont have the room for a stand dryer, tried it once, sold it 2 weeks later. but you will find cheep hand dryers will burn them selves out, so far my tresame one had lasted 5 months fingers crossed. |
I just bought standing a doggy dryer. It's the best thing I ever bought!! I have my sheepie in full coat and drying with my hairdryer was near impossible, it took 3 hours+ and it seemed like the motor would give up at any second! There are several dryer threads here, I found the research became complicated so you will find it very informative to search through those threads  |
Carl Lindon wrote: Very few private groomer need to replace dryers, I would bet that including breeders less than 12 members of this forum have ever had to replace a quality dog dryer that they have purchased new. My stand dyer is going on 13 years of age & my canister dryer is going on 10 years of age. I haven't had to replace either one (although with my luck, now that I've publicly printed that I'm sure they will both die on me  ). I've had up to 4 dogs living with me permanently & our dogs that live in show homes in my area come to me for grooming & bathing. I do all my own grooming & bathing. So you can see, they do last a long time. |
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