Smells like Dog

The first rule of thumb at my parent's place: Don't pet the dogs. Trust me, your thumbs will thank me. If you touch the three dogs that roam my parent's property, your thumbs and fingers will still reek even after multiple washings. They simply stink. The females smell worse than the male. The whole lot of them take frequent dips in the putrid back pond and roll in the carcasses of dead critters, but at least the male one, Buddy, doesn't smell like urine. I guess it's because he can't pee on himself but Sophie and Nikki are easy targets. They are more than eager for human attention, bringing gifts of oppossums and snapping turtles as emblems of their loyalty, but nonetheless, no one touches them voluntarily.

For years, my mom has take the Golden Yodle Doodle to the groomers before she has to go to the vet. She gets so embarassed and the groomer lady always complains that she has to wash Nikki two times and she still smells like baby powder with a hint of sewage. After returning from a recent trip to the groomer, Nikki escaped her electric collar, surpassed the fence and basked in the waters of the near-by bog. She returned to the house covered in black and smelling foul. Of course, she was scheduled to go the vet the next morning. My mom was quite concerned about what the vet would think if she brought Nikki in so dirty and fetid. So, Dan threw her in the pond and she smelled slightly better for her 9 am appointment.

The next morning, the vet was carrying out his check-up with Nikki and he turned to my mom and asked, "Does she smell?" My mom's eyes widened as he continued, "I mean, does her breath smell?" As she took a whiff of Nikki's breath, it dawned on her, after years of ensuring that the dogs didn't stink for the vetinarian, it turned out that the vet had no sense of smell.

For the rest of us with fully functioning sniffers, don't touch the dogs.