How often should you bathe a pitbull?

The skin: allergies, dry patches, and hot spots.

Pits and pit mixes are famously easy-care on the outside and famously reactive underneath. The breed runs to environmental allergies, dry flaky patches, and hot spots, and the short single coat offers the skin almost no buffer: whatever lands on a pitbull, pollen, dust, grass seed, shampoo residue, sits directly against skin. That is why the same dog that never needs a brush can spend half the year scratching. In the Bay Area the problem runs long, because our grass and tree pollen season starts in late winter and dry-season dust carries it into fall.

The bath routine that helps has three rules. First, a gentle hypoallergenic or oatmeal shampoo, diluted the way the label says, never poured on straight. Second, a complete rinse-out, longer than feels necessary, until the water runs clean, because leftover residue is the single most common itch trigger owners never suspect. Third, slightly more frequent baths during allergy season, every 3 to 4 weeks instead of 4 to 6, because each bath physically rinses the allergens off the skin before they can keep a flare going. Done this way, more bathing calms an allergic pit. Done with a harsh shampoo and a quick rinse, the same frequency wrecks the skin.