Day 142
In the eight years we’ve had Moby (our yellow lab) I’ve never seen her as dirty as she was last night. Or, possibly, as crazy-happy.
It’s been dry here so I’ve been watering the lawn. And not being used to dragging the hose around manually and timing myself between changing locations I tend to forget about the watering situation until the area is practically flooded.
Last week the guys came out and cleared out the sod around the house for me – making nice long strips of dirt for future flower beds.
Water + dirt = MUD.
Oh dear. I went out back to move the hose and realized that the dog had made herself a wallow under the tree. She had transformed herself from a lovely, clean yellow lab to a large, filthy, mud-caked, stinky-poo pig dog. I decided before turning off the water I’d hose her down. Well, I hadn’t thought too much about this because my plan did not include putting her into the house and into the bathtub IMMEDIATELY after hosing her down. And I don’t know if it would have mattered because she had a plan of her own.
And that plan was to take off at the speed of light, with apparent glee, at being hosed down and run, like a crazed cow, bounding through this small, little yard and somehow maneuver a tight turn so that she could use the entire de-sodded length of the fence as a giant, muddy Slip ‘n Slide.
And she did. With gusto and flair.
Of course, I was laughing at her idiocy and delight and then laughed harder when she went crashing through the hosta planting and ended up on her back, STUCK, against the back fence. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye with (what I’m sure was) embarrassment at her predicament. I pushed and pulled and finally got her rolled over enough that she could get her legs underneath her (once again in the mud).
I looked at the two of us, mud caked and soaked, and just had to laugh at the ridiculousness of the moment. I decided to let her stay outside for a while so I waded through the dog pool and washed off my feet and headed inside to clean up and change clothes.
Upon entering I saw Oscar sitting on the floor of the dining room with a bunch of his toys sort of “on display” in front of him … including his catnip mousies and a baby hippo (that was Gertie’s so I think he must have dropped the mousies by it). Anyway, he was looking, intently, at the pile and it was right in my path so I bent down to flip them off to the side and as I reached down to do so, I realized that one of the mousies was not a toy – but a real dead mouse! Ew! The mouser strikes again!
After much shrieking, I got a paper towel and wrapped the poor thing up and was on my way out the back door to dispose of it. Not thinking I opened the door wide to make sure the cat didn’t follow me and that’s when the wild muddy maniac came charging past me and hopped around, in all her muddy glory, on the new family room carpeting.
What a night!