The Melt: When Bathing Greyhounds Goes Wrong

The  combination of the warmer weather and the moulting tends to lead people  to bath their hounds…but haveyou ever heard of the ‘greyhound melt’?  

It’s  hound grooming day today at The Zoomie Zone, and we thought what better  thing to write about than this common dramatic greyhound response to  getting wet!

This bizarre  behaviour is possibly one of the funniest (if slightly concerning)  things that some greyhounds do when being bathed…have you ever seen it  happen?

You’ll know if you had, it can be quite traumatising until you realise they’re just trying to trick you!

An  absolute classic was a hound called Milo.  There were two of us doing  the groom, but one of us had to dip out to get some towels as there were  none to hand leaving the other alone with the hound to start the  shower.
Milo was being the goodest of boys but the  minute the water touched him he started to wobble, he started to lose  his balance, half collapsed on his back legs and lurched forward,  righted himself and then fell backward.  He then collapsed completely.

We’re  not going to lie about it, there was a hell of a lot of panicking going  on thinking this poor boy was having a stroke or a heart attack.  
Desperately  calling for help for this apparent medical emergency, when help did  arrive, Milo stood up, shook off and acted like nothing had happened at  all as he asked the new arrival for fusses.  It was all very  embarrassing.

We returned to  showering him and he once again collapsed in a heap.  Eventually we did  get him clean, he hopped down out the bath, got dried off and went  trotting off with his owner as if nothing was amiss!

We’ve seen a lot of greyhounds melt, but none quite as dramatically as Milo.  His melt was an Oscar worthy performance!

We  will never forget that moment, and how we wish that it was the only  time it happened.  But a high percentage of hounds we’ve seen get into a  bath has had some form of dramatics when it came to the getting wet  stage.

It’s as if their bodies cannot possibly cope with the weight of the water, and they just melt!  

We’ve  never found anything to actively combat the greyhound melt, other than  provide lots of positive talk, treats and having a second person willing  to get absolutely drenched by supporting a hounds belly and back legs  while the shower is running…the melt is just one of those hilariously  unavoidable, quirky, melodramatic greyhound behaviours that you just  don’t know is a thing until it happens for the first time!

Some  of our hounds are melters, while the others go for the more direct  approach of trying to leap out the shower and run…either way, it’s all  fun and games!