Life with Bloodhounds, part 1 "The Little Things"

You want a bloodhound, you say?

I chuckle.

Let me share a story, one of a few I'll be posting here...

It’s been typical winter weather for my area; sunny and beautiful but cold. After working outside most of the day, I was ready to thaw my bones and relax in a nice hot shower. The dogs were fairly quiet having played hard all evening, so I figured it was safe enough to take my eyes off them for fifteen glorious minutes.

I turned the water on and let it get nice and hot. Billows of steam were rolling out over the glass door. I contemplated a moment whether or not I should close myself in the bathroom, but for fear I’d be unable to hear the squish-monsters, I opted to leave the door open a few inches.

“It’ll be okay,” I told myself. After all, they were all sprawling about lazily, a few snoring even.

Now, owning bloodhounds can be like having toddlers… 130-pound toddlers with strength, speed, agility, cunning, and no governing conscience. So, a bloodhound parent must take advantage of the moments when the baggy-hellions decide to recharge their batteries. Knowing this full-well, I stepped into the shower and put my face right under the hot spray. It was heavenly. You know those moments when everything just fades away? Well, that’s the kind of moment it was that day; that hot shower was my private paradise washing away the world.

And then…

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!” I screamed, suddenly assaulted by ice-cold water. I slammed the head up and away to save myself and then hit the knob. That’s when I noticed the dark figures through the frosted glass…two big galoots standing up with their hands, heads and ears in the sink.

“You shits!” I blared, jumping out of my warm sanctuary into the chilly room.

They had turned the sink water on—the hot water of course—and were smacking and pawing and lapping and playing, flinging water everywhere.

“OUT! Bad dogs!” I yelled. I tried hard to be mad, but the buffoons were so proud of themselves and so delighted to show me how cool it was. How mad could I really be? “Now, leave it!” I barked, shooing them from the room. The other tricksters were still reclining, thankfully, so I hoped that little stunt might be the only hitch in my relaxation attempt. I sighed, feeling hopeful. “Just give me ten-minutes, please!”

Take-two…

Back in the shower, I turned the glorious hot water back on. I let out another big sigh and felt at peace with the world again.

Then I heard the drumming…

Now, this drumming is a special kind. It’s the drumming of a tail attached to a giant puppy who is overwhelmed with a sense of pride in what he’s doing; so much pride and joy that his humongous tail is beating his own ribcage side to side, over and over. I cracked the door open and sure enough my big Doss boy was wagging his butt so hard he was doing a cha-cha of sorts.

“Doss, what are you doing?!” I asked the wiggling fiend. “Ohhhh, no, that’s happiness of a naughty kind!”

He turned to face me, tail beating the door and Lavena’s face while I questioned him.

I surveyed the scene. “I know you’re up to something,” I stated, but unable to find anything amiss, I closed the door between us yet again. “Be good out there, you rebels,” I added.

Ears trained toward the riffraff, I lathered shampoo on my head at a hurried pace, realizing the bliss and relaxation I’d hoped for was just a fantasy. That’s when the drumming outside got even louder, this time accompanied by some type of turbulence that I could only imagine was Lavena. “This can’t be good,” I thought.

Big sigh.

I rinsed just enough suds out of my hair to step out of the shower for the third time…

“What are you doing?” I asked the 135-pound yearling monster who was looking up at me with eyes full of pure joy. He flung his wag-weapon harder than ever, whole face smiling, and spine bending back and forth. “Whatever you’re doing is something mighty special!” I looked all around, seeing nothing though. And then Lavena started jumping around trying to get at his face…

That’s when I noticed the slight poof in his cheeks…

“What is in your naughty mouth?!” I blurted, grabbing his muzzle and lifting his lips up and jowls back.

I was imagining there would be a hair tie, or a bottle cap, some stolen loot in there…but ohhh, no…what I saw in the monster-mouth completely caught me off guard…

“What the hell is this?” I mumbled, bewildered.

There inside the slobber-dome was a big, white blob of what looked like paper-mache. I glanced to the toilet paper roll to discover that the paper that was there just recently was now missing.

“What in the world?” I begged, pulling his mouth open wider. Doss was thrilled that I was now partaking of the super-fun game and flung his butt side to side the entire time I was groping around in his pie-hole. Shampoo residue ran down into my eyes as I pried loose what has got to be a world record spit-wad. “How the heck can you fit alllll this in there?!” I asked in awe. “It’s the whole damn roll packed in there!”

Now, this massive glob was impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it. When I finally pulled all of it out, I examined it in amazement—a huge mold of Doss’ mouth quite like the dental impressions I recall the orthodontist making of my own mouth when I was a kid.

Doss stood there looking up at me, still wagging his body all the way up to the shoulders. No guilt. No shame. No oops I got caught. Just pure happiness. “This is FUN, Mom!”

“I have no idea how it is even physically possible to fit that much toilet paper in your mouth!” I scolded him. “Not to mention why you’d even want it in there! Go lay down!”

I set the record-book wad up on the shelf, as there was no way it was safe in the garbage can, and stepped back into the shower. “Please you guys just let me rinse my hair!”

I could hear some clanging around, but thankfully it sounded like one of their approved toys, so I just hurried to finish up and towel off…

Oh, naïve bloodhound mother…shouldn’t you know by now?

Shouldn’t you know that couldn’t possibly be one of the toys you’ve given them?

Shouldn’t you know it would be some thrilling ill-gotten gain?

Well, like most moments when I have trusted the young smush-monsters I share my home with, I ended up asking myself, “Why???”

“Why do you trust them? They are hoodlums,” I mumbled under my breath, picking up pieces of shredded plastic off the floor. “Not even sure what this used to be, but it wasn’t supposed to be for you jerklets.” I gathered the turquoise fragments bit by bit suddenly realizing it used to be the bottle of conditioner that resided on the shelf above the toilet…

“Ohhh, nooo.”

And then I looked up to see the bottom of the destroyed bottle sitting on my bed with a tiny amount of conditioner still inside… the rest of the thick white liquid was splattered like a Jackson Pollock painting across my comforter, footboard, headboard, pillows, and even my bath robe. What wasn't spattered all over was being painted across the wood floor and rug in long, sweeping strokes by sticky, wet ears.

--Speechless--

There are moments that only bloodhound people know; moments where your mind tumbles like a shoe in the dryer. You can’t scold them. You can’t be angry. Total awe. In these moments you realize you have not seen it all, you never will see it all… There is always something they can and will do—and in speeds that defy every known law of the universe—to ransack, destroy, and devastate your dwelling in a way you never before imagined. They are creative geniuses, the Picassos and Pollocks of the dog world…and they work in all mediums.

So, while I stood, mouth hanging open, unsure of just what to do first, the floppy artists came bombarding me with plastic shards and reeking of Garnier Fructis, delighted to the bone to share their fabulous art project with me.

“Isn’t it just grrrreat, Mom?!”

And all I wanted was a normal person’s shower.

 

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