For context, there are two stray dogs at our local city park that we can’t outright adopt, apartment rules say no pets, but we’ve been doing our best within our means to care for them at the park in the meantime.
More details here: https://lemmy.world/comment/11362479
I don’t know if you’re able to get these guys into a bath tub, but an extended period soaking in warm water will make this easier. But the fastest way is probably to use clippers/ scisors. The dogs will look like shit when your done, by they’ll suffer a whole lot less than pulling stickies out of their fur.
The older of the two seems to really love plain water and brushies, I just found out the other day. He’s also been shedding so it’s been more or less easy to just pluck most of it off of him, so he’s pretty clean already. I might give him a shampoo bath soon.
But the other one doesn’t really seem to like the water or the brushies that much, he’ll just as soon try to run away after only like 10 seconds or so. And he’s got larger sections of his fur apparently covered in sap.
I don’t have the means (or the privileges) to take either of them to a tub unfortunately. And however I go about it, I don’t want them running away before a full rinse with chemicals still on their fur. At least the older one will probably like it though.
Did you try dawn dishsoap? That is what vets recommend. They use that to get the spilled oil off the wildlife.
That might be worth a try yes, but I dunno when it comes to pine sap. Pine sap is so sticky, you can more or less compare it to having gum stuck in your hair.
I haven’t yet taken any soap or shampoo to them just yet, I’ve only within the last couple days gotten them both chilled out enough for a plain water bath and brushies.
I wasn’t sure how they would react to getting wet, so I didn’t want to take a chance of them getting startled and running off without the time to properly rinse them off.
One of the pups absolutely loves the water bath and brushies, so I’m pretty sure he’ll love a good shampoo bath soon. The other pup is friendly, but doesn’t exactly know what to make of plain water and brushies just yet, so he might have to wait.
I dunno, takes a while to get stray puppers to trust you ya know.
If push comes to shove and none of the other alternatives work, turpentine is the solvent extracted from pine. It smells terrible and you need to wash it with soap afterwards, but I doubt it wouldn’t work.
Do try detergent and mineral oil first, though. They’re much easier on the animal and your hands. And the environment.
I ended up giving them a hand sanitizer bath with a hair brush, then mostly dried them off with paper towels. They’re so much cleaner now, and they loved it!
Neat!
Maybe Baby-Oil and a Hairdryer to get it soft. Google seems to have lots of answers for human hair or dog fur.
This actually makes a lot of sense, thank you!
i once got a big glob of tree sap on my car and the Internet told me hand sanitizer would take it off. Worked like a champ on the car. Not sure what it would do for fur. Pretty sure it was the rubbing alcohol that was in the sanitizer that did the trick but maybe spot treat with hand sanitizer and follow up with water?
I tried hand sanitizer on them today. They both got the best cleaning they’ve ever had, and I didn’t have to restrain them for long.
yay! that’s wonderful!
I use canola oil and salt and rub it in. Always cleans it out and the ingredients are cheap.
Butter dissolves pine sap
Cut it out of the fur, it’s too difficult to get that much cooking oil out of the coat, even with a good dog shampoo. Source: my double coated dog likes to eat used frying oil.
The older of the two wasn’t too terribly dirty, and he’s been shedding, so he’s basically let me just pluck most of the sappy fur off of him, and he loves water and brushies, so he might get a proper shampoo bath soon.
The younger one is a bit more skiddish when it comes to trying to clean him up though. He’s friendly and all, but to try to even brush him, he’ll run away after like 10 seconds or so.
That’s great! I’m glad, I make my dog endure baths by putting chunks of a high value treat, like cheese, in the tub. It sinks a bit, he approaches the tub to check it out, into the water he goes, he gets soggy cheese continuously while I scrub him. Win/win.
I managed to wash both of them with hand sanitizer, a cheap hair brush, and some paper towels today.
They seem like they’ve never had a better day in their life!
put peanut butter on the wall for him to lick while standing in the tub!
“Cooking oil”? Did we both read different words from the same post…?
Indeed, cooking oil and pine sap are two completely different things.
I suspect that they’re talking about using cooking oil to remove the sap, which is a thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/1897adl/lpt_olive_or_vegetable_oil_will_easily_remove/
Then you use detergent to remove the oil.
https://andreadekker.com/how-to-remove-sticky-tree-sap/
I have TONS of experience removing sticky tree sap from shoes, clothing, hands, hair, toys, strollers, and more, as we had roughly 35-40 massive drippy, sappy pine trees on our property when we first moved to our farmhouse.
How to Remove Tree Sap from Hair:
I really wish I didn’t know this tip — but I do, and thankfully, it’s also really simple 🙂
Just pour a little vegetable oil into your hand and rub it into the sappy area. You could even use a comb to scrape it out. Once the stickiness is gone, you can then just shampoo as normal (you don’t need to shampoo immediately, you can wait until bath time.)
The soap and shampoo being talked about on Reddit and this site respectively to remove the oil just being detergent.
Precisely, I would use oil as a last resort, as it is difficult to wash out of dense fur or a double coat.
Just a heads up but it is often illegal to forbid pets and children in apartments. Where I live that is the case. Lease clearly said ‘no pets’ but manager says f all when I take my dog for walks. If you want a pet I suggest looking into the laws regarding that in your area.
Only pets we’re allowed to have are pets that can stay in a cage or aquarium or so, like hamsters or turtles or something like that.
These dogs need a good fenced in acre or more to run around and play in. They’re mostly outdoor dogs. If I even could adopt them, I’d probably only bring them inside during extreme weather.
Mississippi Housing Authority for ya…
Is there no SPCA or other dog rescue in your area? Research them a bit and then notify one
Animal Control has already tried to catch them. No dice so far. Police know about the situation, and come to check on them occasionally and even give them treats.
In the meantime, we, along with other volunteers, manage to bring them something to eat and some water every day.
But guess what? Today I gave them both a brushy bath with hand sanitizer, and it worked great!
Does Goo Gone work on sap? I know it’s citrus-based.
No idea, but I might have to keep that thought in mind. I don’t have any of that right now, but I have some of the other things others have suggested.
Rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, baby oil, vegetable oil, and perhaps even try mixing some salt with the oils…
I’ll start with what we already have in our vehicle, hand sanitizer, and see how that goes and go from there.
Thanks for the thought though, if nothing else works well, I might try some Goo Gone.
