My God, dogs are gross. I hope you’ve finished your breakfast. It never ceases to amaze me how the lazy, cuddly lump that hogs the sofa all day without moving is the same springy arrow-shaped blur that is currently terrorising our rabbit population.
Now, usually I choose not to bore you with the rabbit stories, well this is a blog not the Discovery channel, and it generally goes: dog catches rabbit, dog is then not sure what exactly she should do with rabbit, rabbit plays dead, dog drops rabbit, rabbit buggers off sharpish, dog gets the hump, and although the first couple of times it was horrible, it’s dawned on us that she can only ever catch the ones that are on their last legs anyway.
And so it was that Hubby and I took B for a Sunday afternoon stroll down the lane. A small squeak later and lo and behold the stupid animal is bounding towards us with a very small and very ill rabbit in her chops. The fact that it had been lying on the grass verge and didn’t try to run away apparently not inhibiting the thrill of the capture. Hubby and I backed away (we’ve learned that B always really, really wants us to have the present) as we could smell this one coming and as she got closer, Hubby went ‘ugh, look at her face’. B’s face had suddenly become a darker shade and closer inspection revealed that all the rabbit fleas, deciding that their current host was about to check out had decided on B as their new ‘condo in Palm Springs’ as it were. They were pinging merrily about her face and hubby and I could almost hear the little shrieks of joy as they checked out her new pad.
Anyhoo, after we’d tentatively brushed off the excess, and with me screaming like a girl when she came near me, Madam was marched (on a very long lead) straight back home and into the shower, where Hubby got in with her (ha ha) and shampooed her with the special doggy tea-tree shampoo. Fleas aren’t like headlice, so they can’t hold on and just get washed away with the water, thankfully. Amazingly because she’s not that hairy, it was a relatively easy process. We threw a towel around her as soon as she got out, and when she shook, there was just a very fine spray – unlike my Mum’s dog’s mammoth efforts at redecorating the whole bathroom with black hairs when you bath her.
Later, after her blow dry (which she absolutely loved) and a bit of talc under the armpits, I gave B a cuddle (she smelt yummy) and was telling her what a beautiful girl she was when hubby walked past and muttered ‘well, what do you expect, she’s had a bath and a flea facepack’. Hmm.
