Workin’ at the dog wash blues

I’m a city boy, born in Brooklyn. Not a lot of wild animals running around Bay Ridge.

But I live here now, and have to deal with the fauna of wildest Lafayette. That’s mostly not too hard, except that last night Claudia, the perfect pup, got a little too close to a skunk. I don’t think she got the full-on spray, but she sure smelled skunky this morning and something had to be done.

A trip to Petco Express got me a bottle of Stinky Dog Shampoo, then they asked if I was going to wash the dog there–turns out they have a pet wash onsite, with sinks, blow driers, aprons, towels, waterproof collars and leashes fixed to the wall. Much easier than trying to corral the pup in the kitchen sink and then dry her with Gail’s blower. How could I resist?

No idea what’s going to happen.

Getting wet so we can get started

Now we add the shampoo and start the big scrub a dub dub.

Scrubbed clean, there is major rinsing to be done. When Claudia is completely soaked we notice that we have a lot less dog than we think we do–that’s one scrawny pooch under all that fur.

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There is some serious shaking happening to get rid of all that water, then I attack with the towels. She’s starting to look a bit more normal, but there’s a long way to go.

The dog wash has a very strong blower, pushing out tons of warm air. You don’t hold the blower 6 inches back like you do with your own hair dryer, you hold it right up close and blow like hell. The dog’s fur is think and seems to have sopped up a gallon of water. She doesn’t particularly want to stand still for this procedure, so you’re drying a leg one second and her chest the next, then her ears, then back to this leg and around and around until, finally, she comes out clean and dry and fluffy and soft.

This process isn’t cheap–the skunk shampoo is $15 and so is the use of the dog wash. Puppies are damned expensive, but cute enough to justify the expense.

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