The first place you use your water is in wetting down the coat, including the underneath layers, before applying shampoo. The next place is in diluting the shampoo. Then you start wringing out the cords. If, in doing this, you raise a lather, start over and rinse some more. You wring out the cords until your hands cramp.
Time spent here shortens the time spent being dried in the cage.
Another good aide to drying is to use the appropriate sized sweatshirts you will pick up in yard and garage sales, or from your kid s closet. One sweatshirt goes on over the head in more or less standard fashion, and the other one over the other end, pretending the tail is a head also. This will nicely wrap him up. Towels don t work for this. Use a couple of diaper pins to hold the two together.