Zoomies

Hello friends!

I just finished bathing the dogs. Let me tell you, that is a whole experience. Weve got it down to a science in the house, but it doesnt change the fact that it’s a big old deal to bathe the critters.

We always start with Joe. Joe has two moods when it comes to bathing. First mood is playful, he thinks its play time and wants to chase the water and blow bubbles in the soap, and he wants to paw at me and knock the shampoo bottles off the ledge of the tub. He is having a grand time and bath time is the best and isn’t everything delightful. His other mood is dejected, he goes boneless when I try to get him in the tub, lays down when I try to scrub his belly, leans on the wall to hide whatever side I’m cleaning, sighs repeatedly and loudly. Hes mad about the bath, this is the worst and hes definitely going to reach out to the ASPCA about this. 

Today we were dejected. Hes still miffed about it, and is begging to go outside, I’d assume to roll in whatever he can find to remedy the problem. We simply smell too nice, you see.

Scooby rarely gets truly upset about bath time as long as he likes the tub, the water is warm, and you move with a quickness. If anything is off he starts to get fussy. He likes the big sink in my kitchen and the tub in my bathroom, but not the guest bathroom tub. I think its a little too dark for him. Plus he rarely goes to the guest spaces on his own because he is a little too blind for the steep basement stairs. Totally understandable. 

Scooby also has special shampoo and a fancy procedure to his baths because of his skin condition. Hes always been an itchy dog and we learned that he is actually allergic to almost everything to some degree. We’ve tried a lot of options over the years but have mostly settled on, at least for now, a fancy shampoo and a glove with the nubbins on it for a cleansing, massaging effect. He sure loves that thing. The shampoo has lots of anti-itch and moisturizing ingredients so he walks away feeling so soft and good about himself. It’s pretty fantastic. Hes got some minor allergies to lots of things, including his own saliva, so anti-itch is a must.

Watson tends to always hate baths but that’s because hes so little it’s hard to warm up after hes cold. Hes so small it doesn’t take a terribly long time to get him all scrubbed up and clean, but he pouts and grimaces about it the whole time. He also tries to hide, or bail out of the bath, which means we’ve switched from bathing in the kitchen sink to my bathtub, because I was really worried he was going to escape my grasp and make a run for it on my kitchen counters. Less than ideal. Now he just gets all angry trying to climb the tub walls and eventually just starts yelling his little head off.

After bath time is his favorite part, he gets wrapped up in a big fluffy bath towel and then gets toted around for a while in his little bathrobe. Usually I end up cleaning the bathroom up and doing some minor cleaning and “puttering” around the house while hes along for the ride. I sit him down in his little towel occasionally when I need two hands and Christopher thinks he looks like little baby Yoda. All you can see is his little face popped out. Hes perfectly happy being babied, it’s just the actual bath part that ticks him off. Go figure.

I wish I had gotten some pictures of the beans in their soaking wet state but two important things happen during and after baths. I hide my phone in my room and close off the whole space in an attempt to prevent water damage and general destruction and your usual mayhem. Joe especially thinks anything remotely soft is a towel, so bedding, office chairs, clean laundry, anything within reach will smell like wet dog. The other important thing is the two and a half sets of zoomies. Joe and Scooby start immediately, I get about a minute to dry as much off as possible and then those two have to be free to run around like crazies. I’ve started strategically leaving some of their bath towels in their day beds, and usually in their crazy, gotta-run-gotta-play state they play with the towels enough to help the drying process. Watson waits until he has soaked up every ounce of his post bath cuddles and then goes for his zoomies, which is great because he can mostly avoid being run over by Joe at that stage. Joe tries very hard to be mindful of his brothers but sometimes the play is just too fun to stop and pay attention. I usually get knocked over in those moments too.

But the beans are going in for some official haircuts and spa days soon, and I will get some glamour shots then hopefully. 

Until we chat again my friends.