HAPPY BATHDAY

Today I bathed the dogs.  This is not an unalloyed pleasure.  Rescue, who is 85 lbs, handles the stress by rapidly wrapping himself around my legs.  Unfortunately I secure him with a thin chain to the side of the arbour that covers the porch where I bathe them, and by moving in circles around me, he very quickly wraps the chain around my legs and throws me down (after cutting off my circulation). He does this every time he gets a bath, and because he suffers from “Pitbullitis” (my name for those little bumps that seem to afflict pit bulls at one time or another during their lives), he has to bathe several times a week with a special (and very expensive) shampoo anytime he has an outbreak.

 Sahara, on the other hand, clearly enjoys the whole thing and gives me no trouble whatsoever.  I always try to bathe the dogs when the sun is out in full blast.  But even if it goes behind a cloud, Sahara does not flinch, shiver, slink down or try to get away. She is also very cooperative, lifting her feet for to have between her toes cleaned properly. When you are bathing the other dogs, she is always nosing around and your best bet would be to bathe her first and get her out of the way.

You Can Bathe Me If You Can Catch Me!

Her daughter, Hope, is the diametric opposite.  You first have to find Hope.  Then you have to drag her out from wherever she is hiding (under the bed this time).  Holding her collar you coax and cajole her to the front door while she plants her bottom on the floor and braces herself against any forward movement with her front paws.  When you get to the front door, my advice would be to save yourself further aggravation and just lift her up.  However, as she weighs nearly 50 lbs, and she allows herself to go completely limp in your arms, you had better prepare yourself for a strained back.  One way or the other you will eventually get to the porch at the side of the house and the minute you let go of her collar to reach for the chain, she tries to bolt.  Once you have her secured, however, the rest is relatively easy.  One thing I will say – having her ears un-cropped makes bathing her so much easier.  Part of the problem with Rescue is that, regardless of what you do, he ends up getting water in his ears. And he hates that.  Hope has long dangly ears that close like the seal of a Tupperware bowl over her auditory orifice and washing her face does not bother her in the least. The other dogs have never had their faces properly washed – a wipe off with a damp hand is as near to it as they have ever gotten.

Hope Ignoring Me

Hope does not have Pitbullitis.  In fact, she has the most soft, thick fur imaginable.  Over the months I have tried several different kinds of shampoos and the one I am using now – Hartz Wheat Germ - is very good.  It is also $50.90 a damn bottle.  By the time we are finished she is smelling good and looking better, as is to be expected with the shampoo at that price.  I have to try to dry her off more than the others, however, because the minute I let her go she heads straight for the bedroom where she lies, shivering like crazy, under the bed until even she can sulk no more.  Even after emerging, the cut-eyes continue for several hours.  Today I tried bribing her out of her bad mood with a few Ovaltine biscuits, but though she took them, she did so with a definite sniff of condescension and it did not change the looks of deep reproof that she kept sending my way, as much as to say “that was not cool!”

So, in a desperate and craven bid to get back in her good books, I chose her to go for a walk with Aslan this afternoon.  I take two dogs every afternoon, but Aslan is always one of them because he is the only one who knows how to walk to heel so I can concentrate on the other one.  Although I am going to have to re-think that logic because what he has recently started to do is show off: 

“ Look at me criss-cross in front of you, look at me criss cross behind you – oops, did I tie the leads up like a May pole?  Well, while you’re trying to untangle yourself and avoid falling flat on your face at the same time, don’t forget that if you drop the lead I’m going to run my little ass off and you’ll never be able to catch me. Hahahaha! It’s so funny to take off like a bat out of hell when you least expect it and just about pull your arm out of the socket when I reach the end of the leash – oh, and look at Hope trying to follow me – but she hasn’t gotten down the end-of-the-leash thing down yet, has she?  She gets pulled off of her feet every time when the leash runs out – hahahaha – this is really funny.” 

One day I am going to kill that dog.

I Don't Want to Gooooooo...

The challenges begin the minute we turn off the car engine.  Aslan jumps out first, but I have to keep him on a short leash because we are right next to the walkway with all the runners and walkers, none of whom believe that he is not a vicious attack dog with designs on their throats.  So I have him in my right hand – but I still have to pull forward the seat to allow Hope to get out, and I only have one hand left to do it with.  If he would cooperate and return to the car I could use the hand holding his leash to pull the seat forward while I operate the lever with my left hand, but he is not going to take the chance of being put back in the car, so he keeps the tension on the leash to its full extent while I, holding Hope’s leash in my left hand, try to get the seat forward and her out of the car with one hand.  Hope does not want to get out of the car.  She didn’t want to get in either.  Getting her in or out of a vehicle usually necessitates lifting and carrying.  I need a third, and maybe even a fourth arm. 

Then the key falls to the ground and misses the grill covering the water drain by about a quarter inch.  Which is a good thing because the rain had fallen earlier and the water is gushing and swooshing down that drain at quite a rate.  Eventually, I manage to snag the key and muscle Aslan near enough to the door to get sufficient slack on his leash to position the seat forward.  But not near enough to reach Hope who is cowering against the far end of the seat.  Panting more than a little heavily, I decide the take a chance and, when there is a break in the runners/walkers, I release the lock on Aslan’s leash to give me the slack I need to reach Hope – and we are finally out.  It’s just a step or two away from a break in the railing around the savannah, and at last I can let their retractable leashes out to the full 10 feet.

I use retractable leashes for the two of them.  I would not do it for Rescue and Sahara because they are too strong and they’d probably burst the cord right out of the box if they saw a bird or, God forbid, another dog.  The reason I use retractable leashes is because it allows them to run while I can maintain a walk.  I am sorry.  I do not run.  Ever.

I Like Retractable Leashes!!

Walking in the savannah has its own rules, customs and regulations.  Not to mention problems and stressors.  For one thing, as the dry season progresses there are more and more athletic activities that entail us finding a very circuitous route to get around them.  There are times that we would come across two or three football games going at the same time and in the same area, and there is absolutely no way to get past them than to go through them.  The conversations at that time can become very colourful:

“Tantie, tantie – you ain see we playing a game here, or what?  You kyar jes walk thru jes so.”

“So you ain see I walking my dogs here, or what?  You kyar jes play a game in front of me jest so!  Why you want me to do – fly over?  You feel I am frigging Superwoman or what???”

And then somebody will inevitably chime in:

“So what kinda dog is that?”

And then there are the numerous holes and depressions, all of which I have at one time or another twisted my ankles in.  On a day like today, there is also the mud.  You don’t always see it in time either and the next thing you know you are squelching through a bog while the dogs are happily kicking it back up in your face. 

On the human side, other than the various athletic types, there are the weirdos.  I have seen men masturbating at least 2 or 3 times, been accosted by people who think dogs in general and Pit Bulls in particular have no business occupying the same public spaces that they do, and I was once followed for half an hour by a young woman who kept calling me “Mums”.  On the more positive side, there are lots of children, most of whom love the dogs and want to find out more about them.

You find the strangest things in the savannah.  A “normal” find is a used condom.  More exotic was the time I found a ladies’ handbag with all the contents strewn to hell and back, including a pay slip and ID card.  There are always discarded or forgotten athletic shoes, shorts and t-shirts and even cell phones.  Because of the many vagrants who live in the savannah you also find mattresses, sheets, whole suitcases of clothes and other less savoury signs of human presence that it is not necessary to think about right now.  So you need to be very alert when one or both of the dogs stop to sniff something in the grass – in Aslan’s case this happens about once every 3 seconds.  During the rest of the time he is peeing on every tree and bush that we pass (or try to pass).

Nobody's Leaving Me Anywhere!

Then there are the dogs.  The dreaded Savannah Pack.  Most of these dogs were dropped off by their owners.  When they are first left, you see them frantically running up and down looking for their owners.  Sometimes they would run up to people, thinking that they might be their owners, but this stops really quickly because those people usually shout at them and sometimes even hit them with sticks and rocks.  You next see them trying to get accepted by the existing pack.  If they are successful they have a better chance of surviving as the pack will teach them where to find food, if it is available.  I have heard some people glibly say, “Oh, they are alright – the vagrants feed them.”  These comments are described in polite circles as the person blowing smoke out of their asses.  In all the years of walking in the savannah I have seen one occasion of a vagrant with a dog. The female dogs inevitably get pregnant when they come into heat and the puppies generally die.  The momma dog tries her best, but between the lack of shelter from the elements, the various contagious diseases of the rest of the pack and her inability to generate enough nourishment for her pups, they don’t make it.  Dying of hunger is not an easy death, but it is a fate that some people sentence dogs to without a thought.  I have head stories of why dogs were left in the savannah – he dig up meh garden, I tired of the barking, is my son bring this damn dog here and I ain want no dog to harass me.  But the savannah belongs to them – at least as far as they are concerned – and they take strong exception to me and my dogs and we have been rushed on several occasions.  I used to get really annoyed as it tends to slow down your walk when you’re surrounded by 8 or 10 snarling, barking mongrels.  But I finally accepted that I was the interloper and now if I see them in time I will try to avoid them.

Our routine is to walk through the Rock Gardens and come up the hill on the north side of the Savannah.  It’s a pretty walk and the only reason we won’t go that way is if there are a lot of people in the Gardens who might not take kindly to Pit Bulls.  Today it was empty so we went down.  There are two ponds in the Rock Gardens.  For years the mechanism controlling the inflow-outflow of water was broken and water used to pour out of them – thousands of gallons every day.  They have recently fixed the problem and for a few days after they were fixed they looked really pretty because they cleaned them too.  But since then people have started to again throw their garbage into the ponds – disposable diapers for some reason being the most popular, followed by empty soft drink bottles – with obvious results.

That Was Fun!

Anyway, we were walking alongside one of the ponds when all of a sudden Hope takes off like a shot out of a cannon, executes a flying leap and jumps right into the pond! I really don’t think she knew it contained water, because she immediately turned around and started frantically paddling for the edge.  Of course I had to help her out and of course that involved putting my hands down into the water.   And then I was liberally sprayed with the water when she shook herself dry. 

If your short term memory is bad, please go back and read what I said about Hope’s attitude to bathing.  Also read about the cost of the shampoo that I bathe her with.  And then try to imagine my feelings while I watch this dog, after giving one final shake which did not quite dislodge bits of water lily and algae sticking to her back, happily trot after Aslan.

I really wish I had bought shares in Pfizer – I hear they make an excellent anti-depressant.

After Her Walk/Swim, Hope is Sleepy