How many women does it take to bathe a Pyrenees?
I had to miss a social evening tonight and this is what I wrote to apologize:
We had a major sinkhole on the highway in Colorado I take home from work yesterday and it took me 2 1/2 hours to get home. The dogs were fine though. Today I had a 1 1/2 hour drive home while trying to avoid potential jams on I25 and 58th Ave. It was a mistake. The traffic was worse on this route than it turned out to be on I25. My 45 minute commute doubled.
I got home to the unmistakable *smell* and the first thing I though was “Who pooped”. I looked around, followed my nose and found that Louie (my Pyr in the avatar) had been sick in his crate (on the walls, on the floor and all over him). Rhetorical question: How do you get a poop covered Pyr from his crate to the back door without “spreading the joy” everywhere? You don’t. Needless to say, cats’ and dogs’ dinner was late tonight. Louie ate outside. I had to wash walls, floors, his crate, and decided to worry about what to do with Louie later.
The hose was frozen of course and it is really too cold to hose him down. So after he had dried enough so I could try my first line of defense: to brush out the poop, I tried. It was not going to work. So I had to go to the next option.
It was time for the dreaded indoor Pyr bath. We had not tried this before and I was not sure how I was going to get him in the tub, never mind wet, soap and rinse him. I had cleared away anything from the bathroom from which poop could not easily be washed first of course. Laid out half a dozen towels and dressed in a wetsuit. OK, I lied about the last thing. I actually put on the oldest, most worn out clothes I had (that was a hard choice; there were so many) and went to get my dog.
I got lucky and the worst part was dragging him into the bathroom. It’s funny how this dog who is in my face whenever *I* am in there, was now not going to the door. Nope, no way was he going near there, but the slippery floors helped me out and we did make it. Then, lifting a struggling ~120 pound dog (I weigh about 107) into a slippery tub was no picnic. He was struggling, I was slipping and I am going to feel two pulled shoulder muscles tomorrow I am sure, but my dog was in the tub, water was running and a full bottle of shampoo at hand. And then the rest of the bath went ok. He was so confused he sat there pretty nicely. Either that or he was tired of the smell and figured out this might help. Then he was very good about doing a down/stay to let his butt, tummy and tail soak enough to get clean.
However, I am pooped (so to speak); I smell like it and look like it. I am going to take a shower and hit the hay. Tomorrow I’ll finish cleaning the walls, floors and my dog. I am still seeing suspicious spots at eye level on the walls and Louie needs to be brushed out. Isn’t it nice I am expecting company tomorrow?
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Originally Posted by DRAKEHAVEN
