After a mid evening walk with the new puppy taken later than usual because of our family photos on the beach in Keswick we finally returned home, to which I left the puppy in the backyard. Innocently – at that. To immediately hear barking, and see the pesky black & white stink weasel up against our house. I called to Graham, but he was enchanted. Sprayed square in his dumb little black fuzzy puppy face at point blank range. Whole house smells of it. After a 90 mi ute bath, with soaps, shampoos, and finally a hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap mixture he was bearable to be around without watering eyes. One of his ears is still pretty rank where I’ve missed a spot, but he made out ok, for a dog that doesn’t like water or bathing that is. Now we start the long process of making the rest of the house not stink to high heaven. Ugh!
We didn’t even have him for a full week yet, and he got skunked. So smelly. Burns the nostrils and throat. On the wind is one thing. Driving by road kill is one thing. To have it full throated inside your home unendingly is another thing entirely. My room, bathroom combo just stinks where I bathed him repeatedly last night. Washed a fair few loose hairs off of him too. We didn’t think he was much of a shedder. That was a silly thing to think.
Although on the plus side, he did well in his crate, seems to like it. Goes in to lie down unprompted, and has a good chew session with toys in there by himself. So that was good to see. And I think we will have some lovely family photos for our Christmas cards this year. Because we were on a beach we didn’t bring Graham (the dog) as we didn’t want locals getting huffy about a dog on the beach. Keswick locals, especially where we were, have been known to be vocal about such things. So we felt it best to be avoided. Turned out fine for all of us. Happily.
On the note of the crate, I do not recall it feeling quite so large. Now I realize the new pup is smaller than our old dog, but the house feels tiny around the cage. My only thought is, is that we used the crate before we had kids, so our house wasn’t nearly as cluttered, and we were out at work for 9-12 hours a day, and didn’t see it nearly as much. Now I work from home, we have two more little humans in the house with us, plus all of their stuff. Feels a bit cramped in here now! The crate is easily 2ft wide, 3ft tall, and 4ft long. The fact it’s a white cage means you can see through it, so not a major visual block, but it takes up considerable real estate. Good thing is it’s large enough for four of our current dog to lie down in it comfortably all together. So very roomy for Graham. It was much tighter for our previous dog I can tell you that much.
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