Home Dog Bather for the Financially Challenged

     If you wash your dog in the bathtub as I do, then you’ve probably discovered the joys of using a hand-held dog bath sprayer that connects to your faucet or your showerhead.  They’re similar to kitchen sink sprayers for dog bathing. If you’ve got one of the average dog bath sprayers and connected it to your showerhead, then you’ve probably been a little disillusioned by the short length of the hose (unless you splurged on a higher-end model). The hoses average 6 - 7 feet long, but if you have a 6’ tall showerhead, it’s about two feet too short of being perfect for dogs shorter than Great Danes. I have GREAT NEWS if that’s your experience!

     Our old dog bath sprayer recently died an ugly death after years of great service (I got a good one).  I was disheartened by the selection of new models.  They’re cheaply made and of course, none of them have hoses longer than 72 inches until you get into the higher priced versions.  Prices vary widely; but higher prices don’t always equate to better quality.   Frustrated by the quality and costs of new dog specific bath sprayers, I went to Lowe’s in search of a way to make a dog bath sprayer that connects to my showerhead AND has enough hose to easily reach the whole distance from showerhead to the opposite end of the tub. 

         I looked at bathtub hand-held shower sprayers and kitchen sink sprayers.  I opted to for a hand-held shower sprayer primarily because I liked the larger sprayer head and multiple spray settings that aren’t available in kitchen sink sprayers. My search revealed several cheap models that quickly and easily attach to the existing showerhead. However, they too came with an average 60 – 72” hose.  Grrrrr! I decided to use our old sprayer hose and use a coupler to attach the new sprayer hose to it, creating a 12’ hose with a coupler joint in the middle.

    We left Lowe’s with a $13 hand-held shower sprayer kit and a coupler to fix two hoses together for a total of a 12 foot length of hose.  Our total cost was $21.  One detail I overlooked was that the shower sprayer doesn’t turn on/off by depressing a trigger.  Another easy fix for with an in-line hose shut-off valve placed at the base of the sprayer handle.  All of this was EASY and we ended up with a much better dog bath sprayer that now has a 12’ hose and three spray adjustments.  We could’ve gotten a dog sprayer for the same or less money, but they are much poorer quality at less than $50. This isn’t high quality, but it’s better than the average dog sprayers and cheaper than most of them. It’s a little better sprayer and a LOT better hose length – all for under $25.

     Cinder, Gilley and Buzz may now get as dirty as they want as often as they want because now, I’m armed with our new bath sprayer to make it easy to get them in the tub and bathe them clean again.  I already tested it on Buzz-it was wonderful and he enjoyed not being made to move around so I could reach all of him. Now it’s time for bathing a certain puppy - another adventure in raising Cinder.

Cheers!

Chris