My sweet wife was kind enough to send me an email today with a Christmas wish. To be honest, Kim doesn’t really ask for much. Her love language is giving gifts, and she’s very good at choosing the right gifts for the right people. She delights in it, actually. So when she specifically asks for a gift, I know that the giving of that particular gift will hit the target.
What was her request?
Give the stinkin’ (literally) dog a bath.
Dasher is a Plott Hound, and part of the package that comes with the adorable hound is his smell. He loves it. No–he revels in it. He takes great pride in his hound-ness. He cultivates his smell by sneaking off every so often to the neighboring pig farm, where he does only God knows what in the stuff that he finds over there. He always comes home happy, and a little more, um, houndy.
So tonight I did the right thing. I bolted the bathroom door shut, removed any and all valuables, and proceeded to douse the dog. It was truly a lather, rinse, repeat function. After I got him cleaned up and dried off, I cleaned out his ears (another hound stink spot) and clipped his toenails. My dog got the whole spa treatment tonight. He was so patient as I worked him over, trying to remove his stink. I rewarded him with a special homemade dog biscuit that Delma makes for him–an early Christmas present.
His pride a little wounded at having his stink removed, Dash spent most of the night on a blanket outside Lilly’s bedroom. Kim stole his normal blankets and cruelly tossed them in the laundry–more stench-removal.
As per our normal head-to-bed routine, I put the shock collar on Dash and let him out with the usual reminder: “OK, Dash, one minute. Hurry up, bud.” As I closed the door, I could hear his feet making tracks in the snow. He was making a bee-line for the pig farm. As quickly as I could, I got outside, yelled for him to come back, and hit the shock collar. I had to hit it twice before I could hear him coming back. From the sound of the beep, he was about halfway across the field before I got him turned around.
Why, Dash? Why do you want to stink? What’s in your nature that hates smelling clean? Why do you want to go back to that stanky stench?
I suppose that there’s a moral to this tale, something about all of us having tendencies to return to our old habits, our old ways, even when we know that they stink worse than hound+pig slop…
I have seen some of my old tendencies rear their ugly heads over the last couple of days. I am asking God, believing him, begging him for help. I need to be transformed. Made new. Healed. Of course, there’s a part I have to play in the transformation. I need to be strong, to choose to live in the newness of life, to exercise self-control and maturity…
The choice for me: stank-free.
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