Washing your dog can certainly be a laborious process. You have to get them into the tub, shampoo them, rinse them, and then clean up the bathroom when you're done. Well, Bissell (yep, the vacuum cleaner company) has developed an alternative. Its portable BarkBath system can be used anywhere, and is kind of like a carpet cleaner for your pooch.
Users start by filling up the BarkBath's clean-water tank with tap water and filling its shampoo reservoir with an included no-rinse shampoo. They then apply the device's handheld Bath Tool to the dog's fur, gently pulling the tool along the length of the animal as if they're vacuuming a carpet.
Nozzles in the tool shoot a water/shampoo mixture down to the dog's skin, while a suction head subsequently sucks that liquid back up through the fur, taking dirt away with it in the process. The "used" liquid ends up in a dirty-water tank, which is emptied afterwards. For washing areas such as the face, the tool can be used to spray some soapy water onto an included microfiber cloth, which is then used to wipe the fur.
Although the shampoo supposedly doesn't have to be rinsed out, users can opt to follow the wash cycle with a rinse cycle, in which they use water only.
According to the company, washing an 80-lb (36-kg) dog with the system should only require 48 oz (1.4 liters) of water. By contrast, it's claimed that a traditional tub-washing of that same dog could use up to 19 gallons (72 liters). Additionally, the BarkBath-washed dog won't be as wet when the bath is over.
Of course, one of the big questions is, "Would my dog even let me use that thing on it?". Bissell states that the device is about as noisy as a vacuum cleaner when running, so if your dog doesn't like it when you vacuum – well, it might at least take some getting used to.
The BarkBath is currently the subject of an Indiegogo campaign, where a pledge of US$99 will get you a system … if everything works out. The planned retail price is $150.
It's demo'd in the following video.
Source: Indiegogo
