What is a good safe way to wash pine sap from an animal's fur?
What is a good safe way to wash pine sap from an animal's fur?
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.
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Butter. Sap is not water soluble, so soap and water won’t work. It is, however, fat-soluble, so you must rub an oil (any pet-safe/food oil will work) into the fur and incorporate the two together. Then you can use soap and water to rinse out the mixture. Voila! Works like a charm on many hydrophobic substances.
If it is summer, depending on the severity, probably just use scissors or clippers. At least, that is my solution with cats that manage to get junk in long fur, and where water is a nucatlear bomb with razor appendages.
I can't say anything relevant about animal health in this area. However, with soldering electronics or pipework, natural flux is pine resin, which is basically hardened sap. It is mildly acidic and has a very low melting temperature. It is water soluble but also tends to leave a sticky residue on any surface once dissolved. When I am etching and assembling circuit boards, I use a lot of flux and must wash it off once I am done. I use 90% alcohol in an ultrasonic cleaning bath. It takes using "dirty" alcohol for one pass to get most of the flux off of the boards, but they come out completely covered in a thin layer of flux. Then I do another bath with fresh alcohol. Once removed they no longer feel sticky to the touch, but they do feel, let's say "slightly easier to grip."
If I'm having trouble getting a board clean, I can put a glass dish on my hotplate, heat it to 50-60c and then poor alcohol into it before adding it to my ultrasonic cleaner.
This is intended as an abstract illustrative example of the properties of pine resin. I don't know how a sufficient based soap will interact with pine resin, but water/alcohol seems to dilute. The dilution will likely move the isolated problem to the skin where the acidic and sticky properties of resin will likely be worse for the animal. Thus my reasoning to clip off any offending spots if possible.
Quick update on the pups...
They both got a hand sanitizer bath with a hairbrush today. Pine sap be gone, plus they're a hella lot cleaner.
I'm experienced with soldering as well, and I totally get you. Yes, pine sap is nature's soldering resin, I'm aware of that too. And alcohol tends to clean it up pretty well.
So, somewhere between rubbing alcohol and baby oil as someone else suggested should hopefully do the trick, assuming my
circuit boardstray pupper doesn't run away..
If it won't irritate them, hand sanitizer works wonders on pine sap.
Update: I gave them both a scritchy brushy bath with hand sanitizer today. Not only removed the sap, but they both let me wash and brush their entire back and sides with hand sanitizer!
They're two very happy puppers today.
Actually, we have a bottle of that in our vehicle, I'll have to try that the next time I'm out there, probably later today. Thanks!
Warm water will melt the sap.
You can try giving them a nice warm bath. I’m sure the dogs will enjoy that. You can use the opportunity to wash them with flea/tick shampoo at the same time.
You may not be able to keep pets in your apartment, but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring them in for a brief while in order to bathe them.