How a High Velocity Dryer Changed Bath Day with My Chow Chow

Bath day at our house happens in the garage, not the bathroom. Dan holds the leash, I do the washing, and for the first six years the hard part was never the soap. It was the drying. Bruno is 7 years old, a rough-coat Chow Chow, 64 pounds, and once his undercoat is wet he is a sponge with opinions. In February I bought a DOPICT high velocity dryer. Nine months and about seven baths later, I am not going back to the towel pile.

If you have never lived with a Chow, here is the part nobody warns you about. The coat is two layers. The outer guard hairs shed water reasonably well and fool you into thinking the dog is dry. The undercoat underneath holds it. The ruff around the neck and the pants on the back legs stay damp longest, which is exactly where a hot spot likes to start. Bruno had one in August 2025, on his neck under the ruff. Dr. Nwosu treated it and told me to keep the skin dry. That sentence is what eventually cost me a dryer.

Before this February, drying looked like this. A stack of old bath towels, a lot of rubbing, then about three hours of Bruno flat on the tile while the rest of the water evaporated on its own. He was not miserable exactly. He was damp. The ruff stayed cool to the touch into the evening, and on a cold day he would shiver a little and give me the flat look that says I arranged this on purpose.

The DOPICT dryer is a corded unit, about 9 pounds, with three speeds and three nozzles and a flexible hose. Temperature runs 95 to 135 degrees Fahrenheit and I keep mine at the bottom of that range. It has a built-in temperature control protection system in the casing, which I have never needed and am glad exists. I start on the lowest speed, keep the nozzle moving, and never hold it still on one spot. Never at his face, never at his ears.

The first bath was a negotiation Bruno won. He would not stand for it. Bath two he tolerated, ears flat, glaring at me the whole time. By bath three he stood. Now he braces himself against the side of the tub before I have the hose out, which I choose to read as cooperation. A Chow does very little that it has not decided to do, so I take what I can get.

Forty minutes of noise beats three hours of damp. That is the whole of it, and I would say the same to anyone with a double-coated dog.

Here is how it actually goes now. Bruno goes into the plastic tub on the garage floor, on a rubber mat. I wash him, rinse him, and Dan hands me a towel for the worst of the drip. Then I work in sections: the back first, then the ruff, then the pants. Of the three nozzles I use the widest one on his body and a narrower one for the back legs. I keep the hose moving and the nozzle a few inches off the skin. He hates his back feet touched, so those get a fast pass and we move on. Roughly forty minutes and he is dry to the skin.

Dry to the skin is the part I care about. Not dry on top. The ruff is the test. If the ruff is dry all the way down, the rest of him usually is too. The first time I put my hand into that ruff after a bath and found warm dry undercoat against the skin, I stood in the garage for a minute doing nothing.

What it does not do. It does not replace brushing. The dryer gets water out of the coat; the coat work is still a five minute slicker brush in the evening and the undercoat rake on Sunday mornings, plus twice a week during the coat blows in April and May and again in October. It does not stop shedding. A Chow sheds, and no piece of equipment I have bought has changed that. And it is loud. If your dog is sound shy, do what I did: lowest speed, a few minutes at a time, no drama, no forcing it. At 5.2 HP on the highest setting it is a serious amount of air, and I have never once needed that much on a 64 pound dog.

One practical note. I do all of this in the garage with the door cracked, even in February, because a damp Chow indoors in winter gets chilled faster than he dries. With warm air moving over him he stays comfortable and I finish before the cold reaches either of us. I still keep two towels on hand for the first soak, because a dryer aimed at a dripping coat just pushes water around.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I am not a groomer and I am not a vet. I am a retired school secretary in Fort Collins with one Chow and a garage, and I say that plainly because you should weigh my advice accordingly. If your dog has a hot spot, a rash, a thyroid question, that is a vet conversation, not a shopping one. Dr. Nwosu never told me to buy a dryer. She told me the skin needed to stay dry, and I went home and solved it the way I solve most things, by buying a tool and then learning how to use it properly.

So the question I would put to you is this one. Does your dog's coat stay damp for hours after a bath? If the answer is yes, and especially if your dog carries a thick ruff or heavy pants, the DOPICT dryer is worth the noise and worth the shelf space in the garage. If your dog has a short coat and dries off in twenty minutes in front of a fan, you do not need this or any other dryer. Skip it, and put the money toward a good rake instead.