Weekends are for many things. They are for getting away from one’s job, or for going to the movies, or for visiting with friends, or for just having a relaxing meal at a fancy restaurant with the family. Sometimes weekends are even used for getting out of town, or for catching up with reading, or for just doing nothing more important than sitting in front of a television set and watching endless football games. But in my case, I have long been assigned a weekly task from which there is no rest, and no escape – bathing the family dog.
“That dog of yours (he is always my dog when he needs a bath) is beginning to smell again,” my wife will start reminding me towards the end of each week.
“But I don’t smell anything,” I always reply.
“Just trust me,” answers my wife, who I admit has a much more developed sense of smell than I do, “he reeks!”
It’s not that I mind giving Mikey (the family Cocker Spaniel) his weekly bath, although I usually end up getting wetter than he does, but he absolutely hates the darn thing, and I always end up feeling like I’ve traumatized him. When I mention this to my wife, she simply says, “I love Mikey, too, but if he wants to be an indoor dog, he has to have a weekly bath. I don’t want the whole house smelling like a dirty dog. It’s not too much to ask.”
When I remind her that Mikey simply refuses to be an outdoor dog (he scratches at the back screen door and cries pitifully if I leave him outside for more than a few minutes) my wife reminds me that I was the one who agreed to keep the dog clean if she agreed to let him sleep and roam freely throughout her house.
“But if you would just give Mikey one bath and see how much he hates it,” I said to my wife last weekend, “then I’m sure you wouldn’t insist on him having one every week.”
“I am not bathing the dog, Daryl.”
“But why not?”
“You know why. We’ve discussed this a hundred times. It requires scrubbing his butt – among other things – and I will never, I repeat, never, do that!”
Mikey’s bathing routine is always the same. To begin with, he somehow knows when it’s bath time, and he immediately goes off and hides. If he hears me say the word `bath’, his eyes grow wide with fear, so I’ve taken to spelling out the letters, rather than using the `B’ word in his presence. Anyway, when I finally find him, he will usually be hiding under something (a bed, a table, sheets and covers). Then he makes himself into dead weight and forces me to drag him out into the open. Once I have him in my arms, he begins to shiver and look up at me with the saddest eyes, seemingly asking me why in the world I would want to keep doing such a terrible thing to him.
Over the years, I think I’ve come to better understand Mikey’s point of view. For him, bad smells are a way of life. In fact, they are his life! I mean, when I take him out for some exercise, I’m convinced that he judges the success or failure of his walk strictly by the odors he encounters along the way. He sniffs absolutely everything and the grosser the smell, the more he seems to enjoy himself. In his world, it must seem the height of stupidity for a human being to insist on continually scrubbing away all the wonderful odors he had worked so hard to collect on his skin and fur throughout the week.
Mikey really works at getting smelly, too. He has very furry feet, and they collect just about every dust bunny imaginable. He also likes to endlessly roll around in wet grass (and mud) whenever he gets the chance, but he makes sure to do it when no one is looking, thereby avoiding any possibility of a two-bath week. And he has long, floppy Cocker Spaniel ears, and when he drinks out of the toilet, which is another one of the joys of his life, they always end up getting dripping wet with God only knows what.
“That’s all very good and well, Daryl,” said my wife when I explained all of this to her the other day and tried as best I could to make her understand the very complex way in which Mikey views his weekly bath, “but you seem to be forgetting something,” added my wife.
“And what is that dear?” I asked, very pleased that she had taken the time to finally listen to me explain in great detail what I believe is the irreparable psychological damage being done to Mikey by unrealistic bathing demands.
“He’s a dog!”