Family Dog Gets a Bath

Mom on the Run

My nephew Nate and I are sitting in the waiting area of Dogtopia. Janie, my brown dog, had her spa experience first and she’s done, ready to go, waiting with us as my other dog Mixie is getting her bath.

Mixie, a long-haired German shepherd, is eight years old and has only been with us for about a year. She grew up in a family but they didn’t treat her like a member of it, and she’s come a long way but is still nervous about new situations, strangers, and loud noises, among many other things. So I was a little nervous myself about bringing her here today.

But Dogtopia is hosting its annual charity dog-wash – professionals with professional sinks and professional products getting the job done for a $15 donation to a dog-related charity is clearly much smarter than me struggling with a big hairy anxious dog skittering loosely in my bathtub – so, Mixie, ready or not here we go, facing another fear.

Janie had her bath first. She’s a placid dog who has experienced this before, and she looked pretty miserable during her sudsing and rinsing but otherwise handled her bath like a champ. She was still in her tub when Mixie went in, excited but OK. Mixie refused to walk up the stepladder into the tub and had to be hauled up and dumped in, a dog-washer on either end. She spun once, and then settled down, so I did, too, moving away from the washroom to go sit on the benches in the lobby.

I stayed on the left side of the bench so Mixie couldn’t see me, and Nate sat on my right, watching from down the hallway, giving me a play-by-play. “Her ears are funny, one’s forward and one’s back.” “She turned around again.” And then, “Here comes Janie.”

There’s a clatter and the clicking sound of nails on tile, the door opens, and out comes Janie-dog, walking sprightly, happy to be out and sporting a flag-motif bandana. I stand up and take her leash, and she sniffs around a little; checks out the rubber ball, sticks her nose in the bucket of ice and sodas, takes an experimental lap from the shiny silver bowl of water on the floor. As she’s exploring, Nate’s still watching Mixie.

“Um, she doesn’t seem so happy now. She’s turning around, a lot.” “She just put her paws on the edge, like she’s trying to get out.”

“Do you think she’s upset that Janie’s not in there anymore?”

Nate shrugs: “It looks like it.” I stand up and lean over, so I can peek down into the grooming room myself. Mixie is panting, her ears are both back, and yes, she’s moving restlessly in the tub. I can hear the groomer: “You’re OK. You’re fine. Come on, stand up for me. You’re OK, Mixie, that’s a good girl.” She’s crooning away to my nervous dog, who is covered with foamy white suds and getting antsier by the minute.

Then Mixie starts whining. Little panting whines, with an occasional deep grumble – not a growl, just a moany complaint. Whine, grumble, whine, whine, sad little yip … a long paragraph of unhappiness, as the water splashes and the groomer tries to calm her.

And that’s when Janie stretches to the end of the leash, towards the bathing room, and sits down. Her ears are pricked forward and she stares ahead, fixated. And Janie starts to whine too, little sympathetic noises, matching Mixie’s complaints. Whine, whine, back and forth, Janie letting Mixie know she’s not alone.

Nate laughs, and says, “Wow, Janie must really love Mixie!”

“I guess it’s one of those things where, nobody can pick on my sister but me.”

Nate and I sit and watch and listen and marvel as Janie talks Mixie through her bath, the two dogs whining and muttering back and forth. Finally Mixie’s done, and she tumbles out of the tub and drags the groomer down the hallway and through the lobby and over to us, where we laugh at how fluffy she looks with her clean new ‘do, and the dogs drag us out the door, ready to go home.