DES MOINES, Iowa — At this point in winter, we're dealing with dry, irritated skin. For pets, there's now a bathing treatment that uses only water to soothe their skin without any chemicals.
At Paws & Pints in Des Moines, lots of dogs are running around on any given day. It's a place dog owner Kali Brudos says brings her dog Bubba out of his shyness.
“Bubba just turned a year last September. He is what I like to call a Velcro dog," Brudos said. "He's very attached to me, but he's very well trained.”
And it's now a place that's helping dogs skin heal with microbubble technology.
“My other dog did have a bald spot for a while,” she explained. “He had some health conditions, so at one point in time they had shaved part of his back. He didn't have any hair growth in that area for about a year and started doing microbubbles and it started coming back, and now you'd never know that difference.”
So, how does just water soothe these furry friends skin with a deep clean, without any chemicals or fragrances?
To get to the bottom of these bubbles, Megan Casey, co-owner of Paws & Pints breaks it down. Microbubbles are an innovation Casey said was created in Japan.
“Microbubbles is a unique technology that basically creates billions of microbubbles,” Casey explained. “They're about the size of a red blood cell that penetrates the dogs skin deeper than any shampoo or conditioning treatment would ever do, so dogs that have issues with their skin, parasites, yeast infections, even healing wounds.”
Casey says there's about 90 units in the United States.
“So we're one of the only ones in the state of Iowa that has it," Casey said.
Using tubes and millions of tiny bubbles, dogs are treated to a deep clean for 20 minutes, with no shampoo and no conditioner necessary.
“It's actually crazy when you look at it, when you're done, the water typically is a really gross filthy looking, kind of like when you take sunscreen and you wash it off. It's like that gritty substance in water. But that's just in your dogs skin,” Casey said. “That's what it's able to pull out and heal at its core. Some dogs that don't even have hair on their skin, we've been able to help them regrow hair back that didn't exist before.”
Microbubble technology gives pet parents a more holistic approach to grooming, especially for dogs with allergies.
“Healing the body by just using water," Casey said. "Think about how many bubbles that is if they're the size of a red blood cell in your body.”
And while some dogs may get skittish at bath time, microbubbles can have calming effect.
“Willow gets heavy eyes and will half fall asleep in the middle of the microbubble tub,” Casey added.
Brudos appreciates that there is no need to worry about chemicals that may irritate dogs skin.
“You never really know if your dogs going to be allergic to something," Brudos said. "So with it just being water, they're clearly not allergic to water. It is just water, tiny little bubbles!”
Proponents also claim it's also better for the environment. There are no plastic bottles, which means no waste. To learn more about microbubbles for your furry friend, visit the Paws & Pints website.