A walk gone awry...

A beautiful late summer day...I'm supposed to be cleaning house, but can't resist being outside. I decide to treat Daisie to another walk around the field. We stroll along, enjoying the sunshine, the breeze, the blue sky...Daisie disappears into the raspberry bushes, snuffling and hunting for moles, and other good stuff. She is gone a long while when I suddenly see her down one of the rows, vigorously rolling on her back, limbs askew in the air. "Daisie!" I yell, knowing this is a bad, bad sign. She pops up to see me, and is smiling broadly when she returns to rolling -- or more accurately, rubbing her shoulders over the black, slimy, stinky spot she has discovered on the grass...Bad, bad stuff! I yell a sharp "Leave it!" and we retreat out of the row, Daisie puzzled why we should miss out on such fun. She runs up beside me, and as she has earned a treat for obediently leaving, I extend my arm out as far as I can to give it to her...Oh my! THE STINK!!!

You can smell her from this distance! It's BAD! She is quite pleased with herself, baffled by my odd rejection of her at this time. "Hmmmm, I find the best stuff in the world, and why is Mom not happy for me?"

Mom is not happy for Mom! I wanted to be occupied outside, but giving a stink bath was not the preferred activity. Streaks of black slime mar Daisie's coat...Already it's been long enough that she will not associate her rolling with the resultant bath.

Signs of doom...Daisie thinks that there is no pattern to our bathtime torture. Here she is, having a perfectly good afternoon, lying about the yard -- in fact, a better afternoon than most...things smell so good! -- and her people get out these instruments of torture! Why? Why me?

The Boss says, "Come!" but what exactly is "come"? Daisie decides in this case it means "come this way", not come to me...She's seen those gloves before...It's never good...

And it's as bad as she remembers...and as bad as we remember...rotten, stinkin' yuk!

The scrubbing is vigorous -- and it needs to be!

OH THE SHAME OF IT!!!

OH THE CANINITY...

The tight tail tuck betrays her knowledge that the worst is yet to come...

"NOT THE HOSE!!! OH PLEASE, NOT THE HOSE!!" A decided lean toward escape here...

This is when the shivering begins, and the abject sorrow and disbelief that a beautiful day should turn so wrong...Yeah, Daisie, we feel it too! It will take us some hours to get that smell out of our nostrils...BLECH!

After a few good shakes, she gets a towel dry, which she doesn't like either...

And then it's time to recoup in her "bedroom".


At least now she smells like one of these!...Well, kinda....