Bath Battle

Admittedly, we are a little lax with the general hygiene of our golden retriever in the winter time. When it’s warm outside, she gets a bath roughly every other week. I make her a little platform out of picnic table benches; pull out the garden hose and the whole job takes 15 minutes. It’s so hot here in Florida that we’re usually both mostly dry by the time I clean up my mess and head back in the house. On occasion we’ll wash her in the back of the truck then take her for a spin dry afterwards. Either way, bathing her is really not a problem.

Being February, poor Scout has been pretty stank-a-licious for the better part of two weeks. Just thinking about how long it’s been since she’s had a bath fills me with shame. But it’s just so…hard. Knowing it was my turn to tackle this task; I took a deep breath and set the wheels in motion. Let me set the stage for you…

Our house was built in the late 60’s. While it has many rooms, it should really only have about five. Total. The bathroom is among the tiniest of the prison cell sized spaces. You can literally stand in the middle of the room and touch both walls. If you sat sideways, you could soak your aching feet in the tub while simultaneously dropping a deuce. Seriously. Scout, being a shelter dog came with a complete set of bazaar, neurotic behaviors, one of which is a panicky fear of confined spaces. Unless it’s thundering, then we can’t get her out from behind the couch. With that being said, I go about preparing for battle.

I gather dog towels and a dog wash cloth from her basket. And no, I don’t mean that they are special doggy products, they’re just worn out and too gross for people.  I leave the doggy shampoo, there’s only one soap strong enough to cut this kind of funk.  I grab the Dawn from the kitchen sink. With the goods stashed in the bathroom, I call the dog. I try to sound as upbeat and excited as possible. She walks up to the bathroom door, then fast-walks past it. I stand outside the door, blocking her exit and try again. This time she dances her little clicky nails just out of my reach and emits a pitiful whine. I manage to shove her in the tiny room and close the door. This is where Scout’s skills really shine. In the four feet of space between the door and the tub, she demonstrates straight up civil rights type passive resistance. She literally lies down and goes completely limp. Trying to move her when she gets like this is futile. She weighs nearly 80 pounds and it almost seems as if she is somehow holding onto the floor. I step in the tub and call her like we’re going to have a frolicking good session of playtime if she will only move forward two feet.  Alas, she is neurotic, not stupid. She simply looks away because apparently if she can’t see me, I go away. I finally manage to pull two feet into the tub, the rest of her following because she doesn’t want to enter the tub chin first. I am already tired and sweaty and we have only just begun.

I get the sprayer down and start hosing her down. She does not like this. She backs up as far as she can into the back of the tub, forcing me to arc the water just to get her wet. Having nowhere to put the sprayer, I let it dangle while I grab her two front legs and pull her toward me as quickly as I can because the sprayer is whipping in wild circles, wetting everything in its path. Now the floor is wet. I kneel to keep from busting my ass, but as I mentioned before I am having to work around the toilet. Every time I turn to reach for something like soap or to scoop the hair out of the drain, Scout manages to slowly creep one leg out as if she’s going to make a break for it.  About halfway through I just peel off my wet clothes and get in the tub with her. She tolerates the rest of the bath, finally realizing that she’s not getting out. She’s clean, but in order to dry her off I have to let the water drain from the tub. This consists of about 10 minutes of alternating between letting it drain and scooping the collecting wad of hair clogging it up. Meanwhile Scout is dancing and trying to bull her way past me. 

Finally the tub is drained and the dog is dried and released. I survey the damage. There’s a kiddie pool on the floor around the tub. There are wads of wet hair everywhere. The tub looks like it needs a good shave. I’m standing in my underpants, covered in wet dog hair. There’s no hot water left. In her hasty escape to freedom, Scout knocked over the Dawn and it is adding festive bubbles to the puddles on the floor. Scout has shaken herself all the way down the hallway so walls and floor are spattered with dog water. I legs are literally trembling from squatting for 20 minutes in a row. I go get Scout her chewy treat, get her situated on a towel somewhere, then I get myself situated on a towel somewhere. It was my turn to bathe her, not to clean the bathroom.