‘Get a dog!’ said many people of my acquaintance. ‘Go on, get a dog. It’ll be fun,’ they said, these people.
And my advice to people if they ask me should they get a dog, too? I would say, yes - as long as you don’t care about your soft furnishings, the doubling up of your weekly laundry quota, your peace and quiet, your ear drums when your dog is small enough to sit on the back of the sofa behind your head and quite enjoys barking at sudden and random moments, the daily mud/dirt/dust battle especially if you live in England with its variable climate, the murderous tendencies towards your garden wildlife, the massive divots excavated in your lawn and borders, the fact you will NEVER get to eat a whole biscuit ever again, the snotty smudgy nose smears on the insides of your windows, picking up poos (especially when they are a bit on the gooey side), the unsolicited advice you will get from other dog owners because they wouldn’t do THAT, they would do THIS instead…oh, I could go on but I’m in a chipper mood today, so let’s not spoil it.
Of course, a dog (and I’m thinking specifically of Nellibobs here) will increase your level of exercise and fitness. They will make you laugh a lot, they generate a HUGE amount of heat so are especially cosy on colder days when you are sitting and writing and they are flumped across your feet. They will give you experiences you’ve never had before (see above), and they will teach you not to sweat the small stuff. I mean, in the grand scheme of the World, it is only a rug after all. Even if it was a very nice rug.
They will also teach you new skills. Like how to hang laundry on a line without any of the contents being stolen by the dog as a fun play thing. And how to be a doggie hairdresser. And, if you think being able to bath a baby without drowning it is a skill, then bathing a dog will up that skill to a whole new level!
Yesterday, I bathed Nell. Usually, I wait until Andy is available because until yesterday I had this job pinned as a two person effort. However, I thought, ‘What if I HAD to bath her own my own because there was no choice?’ Also, she had spent nearly a week walking, running and digging her way through the wet, wind and mud the weather has brought and her coat was beginning to look properly revolting and unacceptable. And you have to be careful with cockapoo fur as it mats very easily.
I tried to put off the deed by doing a bit of tidying up in the garden following Storm Debi, which didn’t affect us too badly but did encourage a lot of leaves off the trees and into the courtyard. I let Nell scuffle around in our increasingly (because we are on clay) muddy garden because I thought, ‘I am going to bath her - a bit more muck won’t hurt.’
And at 3.30 p.m, I girded my loins and steeled my resolve, and went to prepare the bathroom for Bathmageddon.
Previous experience has taught me to make sure everything is prepared before you even start on these undertakings. You don’t want to be stopping mid-bath because you’ve forgotten a vital piece of equipment, especially if you are flying solo. This means collecting three large towels, running the shower so it is at correct temperature for immediate start, putting dose of shampoo into small easy-to-access receptacle, gathering any brushes and combs you might need, having some nibbly treats to hand for bribery purposes, and setting up the top of the Aga with another towel and a hair dryer for blow-drying purposes.
I attached Nell to her collar and lead, and we were off!
Generally, she doesn’t mind being in the bath because she has a ‘water being sprayed’ fixation. Her preferred ‘water being sprayed’ method of fun is the garden hosepipe, closely followed by the watering can, closely followed by water dripping from items (like hand washed jumpers) from the washing line. And whilst she likes the shower attachment in the bath, she soon loses interest when she realises she is going to get very wet and very soapy, and all the lovely mud and smells she has collected in her coat are being eliminated. And the process will take more than 5 minutes, which is 3 minutes longer than her attention span.
She started off sitting patiently in the bath, which was good. I ran water through her fur until the water ran clear which took a while because of the accumulated dirt. Actually, I felt a bit ashamed - it was like those TV ads for carpet shampooers when you see the contents of the water chamber being emptied and it looks the colour of cold cocoa.
And then I applied shampoo, and that’s when Nell decided she might have had enough of this malarkey, thank you very much. But I had attached her lead to the shower and she wasn’t going anywhere until she was properly shampooed. I mean, she tried to leave, and at one point she was standing up with her front paws on my shoulders and her head buried in my neck, but that meant I could shampoo her undercarriage more easily, so that was okay. It also meant that by the time I’d rinsed all the shampoo away she was looking like a drowned rat, and so was I.
And then she got out of the bath and shook and shook and shook and shook until the bathroom looked like a drowned rat, too. But at least the water she was shaking off was clean water that smelled nice! See what I mean? Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Once the shaking was over, we went downstairs and Nell stood on the Aga and allowed me to blow dry her fur until it was about three quarters dry. By then, her eyes were saying, ‘Please, no more of this titivating hell,’ so she retired to her bed with her favourite split antler, and I retired upstairs to mop up the bathroom and change into a complete set of dry clothes.
And then we both retired to the sofa, quite exhausted by the whole experience, and watched The Repair Shop together, Nell all soft and fluffy of fur and smelling divine and me hoping it will be at least a month until the next bath time.
And here she is this morning. I’m in the middle of housework (a considerable amount of which is caused by her) and she thinks I should be outside playing ball with her. Sheesh…
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KJ