Dog Is My Stinky Co-Pilot
last year I visited the Creation Museum. Every time someone said god created man from the dust of the earth, I’d yell “I didn’t come from no dirt!” ~borrowed from a comment thread at Pharyngula
Our greyhound stinks. I mean really stinks. Like an old man whose wife has died and now, without anyone to prod him into basic hygiene, rarely bathes or washes his clothes. (For some reason, I always get stuck behind these smelly old fuckers in line at the grocery store.)
A bath might help, but Aries, being old and fragile, makes like the Wicked Witch and melts in the shower. I.e., he falls over and can’t get up. So there he is lies, on his comfy bed in the living room, stinking up the place. Certain times a day, his basic D.O. is accentuated with Eau d’Fart.
Gheri, on the other hand, though blind and deaf, and giving Methuselah a run for his money, can still be bathed. It just doesn’t happen very often. This morning, after I got up to fed the horse and then returned to bed and our dog-reeking bedroom, I decided at least one dog shouldn’t smell like a kennel.
The “easiest” way to wash Gheri is to chuck her in the shower with me. At first, the whole enterprise seems pretty straightforward and I wonder, “Why didn’t I do this weeks ago?” I wash my hair and bits and pieces and then move on to the Rat Dog.
First, getting the Rat wet (She’s been standing in my rain shadow the whole time and is thus far, just damp.) Scoop little beast up and get her good and wet in the shower spray. She snorts, grumbles and chirps indignantly, but accepts the procedure. Next. Switch the water off and lather up the dog.
Here’s where the fur starts to fly. After a few minutes of scrubbing (with cruelty free shampoo, cuz as I’ve said before, I love the irony), she starts letting loose clumps of hair the way a porcupine lets fly quills. Every time she shakes, big, black clots of hair fly off her and stick to every surface of the shower. Including me. I end up with dog hair in all sorts of unmentionable places.
By the time the bath ends, we’re standing in a pond caused by clog of dog hair in the drain. (Naturally, I leave the mess for Justin, under the auspices that he’s been complaining about the stinky little terrier.) At this point, I am reacquainted with my many reasons for not washing the Rat Dog.
But now it’s time for the drying ritual. First, she flings her wet self on the bathroom floor, and squirms around on the floor leaving a trail of hair. “Lookit all that hair. You should be bald by now,” I observe as I scoop her up in a towel. More grumbles and chirping while I start the towel drying. Next is time with the hair dryer. At this point, she’s well and bored with the whole business. She alternate between flinging herself on the carpet and squirming and trying to make a break for it. In the past, the second option was a lot more irritating, but nowadays, the little blind creature just bumps into something. Like a Rumba vacuum, she turns around and heads the other way. Usually, this keeps her in the area for a while until she finds an escape route.
The whole ordeal takes at least 45-minutes and I vow–like I always do–”Next time, I’m taking you to PetsMart where their groomers can torture you.”
When we’re done, she develops a desperate need to go outside, where she makes a beeline for her favorite spot, a patch of dirt where the sun will bake out all the vile shampoo smell.
Estimated time she will stay clean. About a day. Tops.
