Stinky, Stinky, Stinky Bob

So, I got home from my three-day conference last night. On the way home, I thought I might have missed Bob the Dog. My neighbour, Gary, takes care of Bob (seen at the right) when I go away. Bob loves Gary's family (and not just because they feed him meat loaf), but also because they take him for walks, pet him, pay attention to him...

Bob is very narcisstic.

So I got home, and Gary came over sans Bob with a funny look on his face.

"We have a Dog Issue," he began hesistantly.

Given Bob's illustrious history with misadventure I was immediately envisioning an emergency trip to the vet. In the past, Bob had an allergic reaction to a Halls Lozenge and swelled up like a Sharpei, he was fed a whole basket of cherries by my friend's children and had some unfortunate gastrointestinal side effects, and he was once stung in the dog penis by a bee and had to be given a shot of Benadryl so that he could pee.

This is not an exhaustive list.

I asked Gary "What has he done now?"

"There was a skunk..." replied Gary. He actually looked like he was going to cry. "I tried to give him two baths with a hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap solution. He still stinks. And he kind of freaked out."

This is not surprising to me. Bob does not like to be handled or touched. Just ask the guy with the portable grooming business that I hired in Vancouver when Bob was a puppy. After Bob made his great escape, suds and all, the disgruntled groomer grimly informed me that my dog was feral.

I tried taking him to the vets to get groomed. There he could be sedated and float away on a cloud of whatever it is that they give dogs to get them stoned. The vet assistant smiled broadly when I said they may have some problems. "Don't worry about it," she said, "we have lots of experience with difficult dogs. You can pick him up at 5:00 p.m.."

My phone rang about an hour and a half later. I picked it up and it sounded like dog hell. There was a strange baying/barking/whining noise coming through the phone. I heard the voice of the vet assistant. She was yelling "Can you come get your dog? He HATES it here and he is giving us a headache."

So I sympathized with Gary. When he brought Bob over, I could smell the skunk wafting off of him in waves. Not good. I knew that Tomato juice masked the odour, and that it could be applied carefully to his face. So off I went to Walmart with Stinky in the back seat. ALL windows rolled down. In a stroke of ingenuity I bought not only a can of tomato juice, but a super soaker.

If I had to do this, I might as well a) practice my aim and b) have some fun.

We got back to the house, and to give Bob the benefit of the doubt, I tried the simple bathing method, no super soaker. That didn't work so well. Bob is very bendy for a 92-pound dog. He was able to evade me, despite being tied to the fence.

So, super soaker it was. Pump, pump, pump....success. Bob didn't know what hit him at first. And then he gave me the "you asshole" look. I untied him, because it was hardly sporting to keep him tied up while I soaked him, so around the garden we went.

It looked, with the tomato juice splashes everywhere, like a murder scene.

Bob was pissed off, I was laughing, the neighbours were probably watching....And then the gun jammed.

So, game over. I felt as though we had accomplished what we needed to. I rinsed him with a waterless shampoo and brushed him thoroughly.

We came back into the house. I put away my supplies, and .... I smelled skunk.

Much like the B.B.O. on the Seinfeld episode, Bob's skunk smell has clung to him and has now infiltrated my house and my vehicle.

I let him out later last night, and he raced out in hot pursuit of something. "Oh," I thought "A black cat that looks vaguely like a skunk. Perfect. My idiot dog has learned exactly nothing from this experience."

You see, Bob lives in the moment, and faced with the opportunity again to chase that black and white creature again with that fluffy tail, he would do it again in a doggie heartbeat. Never surrender. Never admit defeat.

Viva la Bob.