- May 18, 2001
- 7,882
- 380
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It breaks my heart, but my good old dog Coda is starting to show her age a little.
I’ve had Coda for about ten years; I got her when she was still just a little puppy. Actually, Coda was never really all that little. She is part Boxer mixed with something huge, possibly (according to her vet) English Mastiff. Several years ago, Mrs. Ned and I found out that we’ll probably never have children, so we picked up Coda at the city pound to help fill the void. We filled out the adoption paperwork for our new puppy and then stopped by the Wal-Mart to buy a doghouse (since a dog just wouldn’t do inside our home). On the way back, we decided that we couldn’t just throw the baby outside in the cold, so the garage would be her home (but only until she was bigger). That night, after several awful minutes of frightened howling, we decided that she could come in (just as long as she didn’t get on our bed). She’s been up there ever since.
While Coda is to this day a high-energy dog, she has always been obedient and tries to please, even during that most traumatic occasion of all to a dog, bath time. Because of the hectic nature of the past couple of months with the holidays and all, Coda had successfully evaded getting a bath for quite a long time. However, last night her luck ran out. She had finally reached my tolerance threshold where I couldn’t stand how greasy she was beginning to feel or that reeking odor of dog that followed her around. Somehow she was wise to my plans. I dragged her up to the bathroom and told her to get in the tub, which to my surprise she did (although she made a huge show of it just to make sure I understood that she deserved something tasty when all this was through).
Then I got in the tub with her, right after I got naked.
Years ago I found that the only practical way to wash a dog as big as Coda during the winter is to get in the tub with her. From harsh experience I now know that if I try to stay outside the tub while I wash her, the entire bathroom gets soaked. Getting in the tub with her and closing the shower curtain fixes part of the problem, but then everything I’m wearing still gets caked with wet clumps of soapy dog hair. So thinking like the computer guy that I am, I came up with the only logical solution: everyone gets in the tub, and everyone gets naked. Luckily, I have yet to discover any strong sexual desires for animals (so long as one doesn’t count Minnie Mouse), but I’m sure that we make some interesting silhouettes on the shower curtain as I wrangle and clean the dog while she frantically struggles to get away.
So last night all the scrubbing was done, the dog was trying to make up her mind about whether or not I deserved a decent biting, and I had the removable shower head in my hand rinsing the soap from her fur. I was working my way from her head to her hindquarters, and all was well. As far as dog baths go, this was a complete success: no blood spilled, no tears shed, and plenty of clean for everyone. Lost deep in the happy thoughts of what I was going to do later that night, I barely noticed that the dog seemed to be a little tense. As I continued rinsing her tail, she jerked and had an involuntary reflex. Something from the back end of the dog dropped to the floor of the tub. I think I immediately recognized what it was, but in my horror and shock I lost all my ability to think, rationalize, or even come to grips with the situation.
I had a single steaming nugget of dog poop lying at my naked feet.
A couple of beats passed while I freaked out. The shower stream washed a warm stew of dog poop germs all over my feet. I’m not a guy who has a whole lot of experience when it comes to getting pooped on, other than the occasional incident with a random bird. I couldn’t come up with a single valid idea for what I needed to do next. Lacking personal experience, my mind raced to my only animal poop-related memory, the one from my childhood that involved my brother and the cat, in hopes that I could glean some insight about where to go from here.
When I was about seven years old, my much older brother had a problem that I guess is typical among teenagers: when it came time to get ready for school, he would often awake to discover that a bed was stuck to his ass. After years of suffering from such a condition, my parents were at a loss as to how to cure his disease. Always the helpful little brother, I recommended that we throw the cat under the covers with him. This seemed like a good plan for a few reasons. First, we were all pretty sure that the cat would go ballistic and encourage my brother to leave the bed. Second, for the cat it was fun to get to come indoors. Finally, the local rednecks just love any kind of story that involves crazed animals. Since we had just recently moved from Indiana, I was desperate to fit in with the kids at school so they would quit calling me “that funny talkin’ kid.” This would make for a really good story, and oh the whoopin’ and hollerin’ fun time I’d have telling it to my newly made “friends.”
What we didn’t know is that kitty had a secret. She had spent the entire night before living it up at the local all-you-can-eat Schezuan barbecue. She was loaded to the gills, ready to burst, and feeling a little excitable about the whole getting-grabbed-by-the-master-and-thrown-under-the-covers thing. My Dad, not knowing the trouble that was brewing, thrust her into the dark in the vicinity of my brother’s kicking legs. The cat’s brains melted. Her bulkheads crumpled under the stress, her pressurized contents found an exit, and my brother found a completely unexpected and new reason to leave the no longer quite-so-comfy confines of his bed.
So I’m standing there in the shower realizing that this memory was no help at all, and that my entire life had left me completely unprepared for this moment. I was at an utter loss as to what it was that I needed to do, although I was certain that time was of the essence. I had this horrible suspicion that if the dog came to realize that a snack was lying so close to her, a vicious cycle of her eating something nasty, me seeing it happen, then me throwing up might commence. Something had to be done quickly.
Then I remembered that I have a wife. “THE DOG HAS GONE POO IN THE BATHTUB!!! Could you help clean it up?!!??”
Naturally, the role in the cleanup that I suggested for myself was to hold back the dog to keep the mess from becoming even worse, since, you know, I’m strong and stuff *cough*.
The wife was not amused.
I’ve had Coda for about ten years; I got her when she was still just a little puppy. Actually, Coda was never really all that little. She is part Boxer mixed with something huge, possibly (according to her vet) English Mastiff. Several years ago, Mrs. Ned and I found out that we’ll probably never have children, so we picked up Coda at the city pound to help fill the void. We filled out the adoption paperwork for our new puppy and then stopped by the Wal-Mart to buy a doghouse (since a dog just wouldn’t do inside our home). On the way back, we decided that we couldn’t just throw the baby outside in the cold, so the garage would be her home (but only until she was bigger). That night, after several awful minutes of frightened howling, we decided that she could come in (just as long as she didn’t get on our bed). She’s been up there ever since.
While Coda is to this day a high-energy dog, she has always been obedient and tries to please, even during that most traumatic occasion of all to a dog, bath time. Because of the hectic nature of the past couple of months with the holidays and all, Coda had successfully evaded getting a bath for quite a long time. However, last night her luck ran out. She had finally reached my tolerance threshold where I couldn’t stand how greasy she was beginning to feel or that reeking odor of dog that followed her around. Somehow she was wise to my plans. I dragged her up to the bathroom and told her to get in the tub, which to my surprise she did (although she made a huge show of it just to make sure I understood that she deserved something tasty when all this was through).
Then I got in the tub with her, right after I got naked.
Years ago I found that the only practical way to wash a dog as big as Coda during the winter is to get in the tub with her. From harsh experience I now know that if I try to stay outside the tub while I wash her, the entire bathroom gets soaked. Getting in the tub with her and closing the shower curtain fixes part of the problem, but then everything I’m wearing still gets caked with wet clumps of soapy dog hair. So thinking like the computer guy that I am, I came up with the only logical solution: everyone gets in the tub, and everyone gets naked. Luckily, I have yet to discover any strong sexual desires for animals (so long as one doesn’t count Minnie Mouse), but I’m sure that we make some interesting silhouettes on the shower curtain as I wrangle and clean the dog while she frantically struggles to get away.
So last night all the scrubbing was done, the dog was trying to make up her mind about whether or not I deserved a decent biting, and I had the removable shower head in my hand rinsing the soap from her fur. I was working my way from her head to her hindquarters, and all was well. As far as dog baths go, this was a complete success: no blood spilled, no tears shed, and plenty of clean for everyone. Lost deep in the happy thoughts of what I was going to do later that night, I barely noticed that the dog seemed to be a little tense. As I continued rinsing her tail, she jerked and had an involuntary reflex. Something from the back end of the dog dropped to the floor of the tub. I think I immediately recognized what it was, but in my horror and shock I lost all my ability to think, rationalize, or even come to grips with the situation.
I had a single steaming nugget of dog poop lying at my naked feet.
A couple of beats passed while I freaked out. The shower stream washed a warm stew of dog poop germs all over my feet. I’m not a guy who has a whole lot of experience when it comes to getting pooped on, other than the occasional incident with a random bird. I couldn’t come up with a single valid idea for what I needed to do next. Lacking personal experience, my mind raced to my only animal poop-related memory, the one from my childhood that involved my brother and the cat, in hopes that I could glean some insight about where to go from here.
When I was about seven years old, my much older brother had a problem that I guess is typical among teenagers: when it came time to get ready for school, he would often awake to discover that a bed was stuck to his ass. After years of suffering from such a condition, my parents were at a loss as to how to cure his disease. Always the helpful little brother, I recommended that we throw the cat under the covers with him. This seemed like a good plan for a few reasons. First, we were all pretty sure that the cat would go ballistic and encourage my brother to leave the bed. Second, for the cat it was fun to get to come indoors. Finally, the local rednecks just love any kind of story that involves crazed animals. Since we had just recently moved from Indiana, I was desperate to fit in with the kids at school so they would quit calling me “that funny talkin’ kid.” This would make for a really good story, and oh the whoopin’ and hollerin’ fun time I’d have telling it to my newly made “friends.”
What we didn’t know is that kitty had a secret. She had spent the entire night before living it up at the local all-you-can-eat Schezuan barbecue. She was loaded to the gills, ready to burst, and feeling a little excitable about the whole getting-grabbed-by-the-master-and-thrown-under-the-covers thing. My Dad, not knowing the trouble that was brewing, thrust her into the dark in the vicinity of my brother’s kicking legs. The cat’s brains melted. Her bulkheads crumpled under the stress, her pressurized contents found an exit, and my brother found a completely unexpected and new reason to leave the no longer quite-so-comfy confines of his bed.
So I’m standing there in the shower realizing that this memory was no help at all, and that my entire life had left me completely unprepared for this moment. I was at an utter loss as to what it was that I needed to do, although I was certain that time was of the essence. I had this horrible suspicion that if the dog came to realize that a snack was lying so close to her, a vicious cycle of her eating something nasty, me seeing it happen, then me throwing up might commence. Something had to be done quickly.
Then I remembered that I have a wife. “THE DOG HAS GONE POO IN THE BATHTUB!!! Could you help clean it up?!!??”
Naturally, the role in the cleanup that I suggested for myself was to hold back the dog to keep the mess from becoming even worse, since, you know, I’m strong and stuff *cough*.
The wife was not amused.
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