If looks could kill, I would be stone dead by now.
Because on Sunday night, the four-legged member of the household was compelled to do something so against his nature, we might have asked him to meow winsomely.
He was required, in the most imperative sense, to take a bath.
Macaulay walks this earth in a halo. It is not due to the saintly nature of his conduct: anyone who saw him steal that sausage from the toad-in-the-hole the other week would testify to that. He is a furtive thief, the kind of petty criminal who will always be found out because they have “I did it” emblazoned on their foreheads.
His halo is an aura which takes painstaking construction. Day after day, like a meticulous French-polisher, he lays down a patina of olfactory colour, a sheen which cannot be seen, only sensed and, regrettably, smelt.
He wanders the forest like a connoisseur, selecting first this pungent bouquet, with overtones of foxes and gorgonzola, and then this fine mature vintage, redolent of silage and Stilton.
With the infinite care of a craftsman, he blends and merges overtones subtle and not-so-subtle to create the masterly individuality that his four-legged peers can detect at 100 paces (If they’re an Irish Wolfhound).
The light of admiration in their eyes, these canine acquaintances, is unmistakable. They are aware they are in the presence of an artiste. Approaches from fellow dogs are laced with awe. They are slow introductions: it is conceivable that if they were humans, they might approach on hands and knees.
He is the Turner of our England’s smellscape; the Damien-Hirst enfant terrible of the nouveau-sniff. I think you get the picture.
And so you will appreciate the vandalism to national canine art which is represented by giving Macaulay a bath.
One of Macaulay’s harem posted him back through the front door on Sunday lunchtime. I noticed she kept her distance. Chris reported that he had been a very good boy, and run his little paws off through the forest: but that I might want to give him a bath.
I waved the suggestion away in affable humour. Macaulay? Bath? Why, the last time he had a bath was way back when he had a haircut. We generally leave it to the dog beautician to humiliate him doubly.
No, said Chris, really. He has rolled in something exceptional today. Unspeakable. It didn’t look very nice at all. He really might need a bath.
As I looked at my friend, I knew she spoke the truth. The horror of that substance in the forest still haunted her. It was writ large in her countenance: don’t touch that dog with a bargepole until you have fumigated him.
It is difficult to put an adorable terrier into solitary. When Phil and the children piled in from their lunch and film in town, I issued an edict. Do not, under any circumstances, touch the dog, because he has rolled in a smell which dare not speak its name.
I’m not sure how successful I was in enforcing this distance. Felix loves his dog, and will give him a hand scratching all the bits the dog’s insistent paws cannot reach.
The children had their baths, and the dog still did not know what was coming. Many a bath is run of an evening, and precious few receive a dog afterwards.
The cat shot out of the bag, so to speak, when Phil removed the dog’s collar. It is a blaring klaxon to the hound: a brazen signal that immersion is nigh.
And when the alarm sounds, evasive action is essential. Because a master must preserve his art at all costs.
Macaulay has a special ability to make himself scarce. Like a silverfish he squirms between captive hands and makes for a small dark place from which it is almost impossible to extricate himself.
Phil took the collar off, and the dog made haste, low and long, towards the stairs and to a place of sanctuary.
But after five years we know his tactics, and I was standing in goal ready to make a stupendous save. Macaulay was robbed. The bath was waiting: the destruction of months of artistic expression. I will swear the look in his eye said: Philistines.
If ever a general was vanquished: if ever a chef was stripped of his Michelins; that was Macaulay. He was a defeated dog. He was lifted into the bath, and applied liberally with that spray-paint of the olfactory world, doggie shampoo. It obliterated the work of the dog’s days.
And I added insult to injury. Because I flew off, sensing a photo opportunity, and came back with The Big Camera. In the Artist’s face I snapped merrily, clickclickclick. He was outraged.
And then it was, that I was dealt a look which stopped me in my tracks. You see it here before you. And I began to think I had overstepped the mark a tad.
Here’s a very strange connection: for I was reminded of another wronged artiste: the sweeping Mr Burwin Fossleton, George and Weedon Grossmith’s Henry Irving-alike from a regular in these posts, the Diary of A Nobody.
Burwin-Fossleton is an ac-tor. He, like my small terrier, lived for his art. One of the most glorious moments of the novel is a letter to our Diarist, Pooter, from the great man, describing why he feels his art is so elevated from those who ‘live a life among ledgers’.
He writes: “I have registered a vow to mount the steps of fame. I may crawl, I may slip, I may even falter (we are all weak), but reach the top rung of the ladder i will!!! When there, my voice shall be heard, for I will shout to the multitudes below: ’Vici!’ For the present I am only an amateur, and my work is unknown, forsooth, save to a party of friends, with here and there an enemy.”
I am that enemy. I have brought my dog down several rungs of the ladder, and not even his party of forest friends could save him from such desecration.
I am off to root out some sackcloth and ashes.
Kate Shrewsday 
How could you?
You . . . you . . . you . . . Philistine!!!
Wonderful post, Kate. You captured the moment perfectly.
And the expression on his face ~ priceless.
Thanks Nancy 😉 I’m not sure the dog would agree with you !
Oh, I wish you’d had your camera when he was stealing the sausage. I’ve never seen toad-in-the-hole, much less a dog stealing a sausage from one.
The bath is a sad development, and I’m sure he thinks he’s ruined, but he’ll be back in the silage and Stilton before he can say “Jack Robinson.”
I am afraid you are sadly correct, Kathy. Pungency awaits.
Toad-in-the-hole: bakes sausages surrounded by fluffy yorkshire pudding.Irresistible, especially to dogs.
Maybe, just maybe he’ll be a teeny bit more careful, going overboard with the smellies could leave him open to accusations of the most dreadful kind when he ventures out smelling of lavender and lily of the valley, with perchance a hint of wild rose
I’m wondering if his comrades in arms will even recognise him, Sidey! Our fragrant is unlikely to inspire the same awe and wonder as Macaulay’s home-made cocktail…
Oh you are wicked.
Sackcloth aside, I do hope he got a very big bone.
Now I feel indescribably guilty, Cindy, no,I have not given him a bone. Time to stop at the pet shop on the way home!
Poor Mac, Philistine that he is. I see revenge in his eyes. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Something smelly lurks in the brambles . . .
LOL Penny….I arrive back to find that Chris has taken him out for a lovely long ramble today while I’ve been out at work. I have not had the mettle to go and do the sniff test yet. But I am, as you say, afraid.
Hahahahaha!
That photo is the perfect accompaniment. I’ve not yet been wicked enough to take a picture of my dog during such a desecration but I will have to in future. It is too brilliant of a memory.
He was so unimpressed I cannot begin to tell you, Kristine. And for a dog with a ridiculously short memory, he has not forgotten….
I have never washed a dog.
But I have washed a cat
and I have washed rats.
The cat was a kitten named Hobbes. He arrived in our home directly transported from a farm in Devon. He came out of the box matted and very wiffy. Very wiffy indeed. He was a small kitten, but looked even smaller after all his fluffy ginger and white fur had been flattened with bathwater and shampoo. I lifted him out into the towel and patted him gently and then let him go. He walked about intermittently shaking first one leg and then another. And it was quite hilarious even though I felt terrible for what I had needed to do.
The rats, we were told, would enjoy a bath.
THEY WERE WRONG.
Lovely photo!
Fabulous comment, Pseu, I laughed out loud 😀 I would have loved to see the looks those rats gave you. I imagine, though, that a camera was simply not an option….
No!
I have a camera on my birthday list….
Kate.
Collies you can groom.
Terriers you can’t – they will still smell.
Baths are the only answers for terriers – who have the body language to make you squirm!
Love Dad
And squirm I have, Dad. I think the run in the forest yesterday might have given him the chance to make himself feel more himself, so to speak. the great task of building up the aroma again has begun.
Awesome post! Poor Macaulay’s… but that look on his face is truly priceless. 🙂
It was. I felt like a member of the papparazzi.
I see the snow has arrived with you, Gospelwriter – fabulous poem! Mac loves the snow: and also deer. It is a shame he cannot read, because your post would have been music to his soggy little ears.
Poor Macaulay – that look says it all 🙂
Like Psue, I have bathed a cat. It arrived flee ridden, so, of course, adding insult to injury I then – as a precaution in case the bath hadn’t drowned the all little pests – powdered the poor might. She gave up trying to lick the powder off after a couple of tastes, which, when you consider what cats usually lick off, proved how bad the stuff tasted. Funny thing was, ever after she sat on my tummy when I had a bath – if she managed to sneak into the bathroom – and I did give her a wash each time.
O, that’s lovely, Liz! You must have been an expert cat-bather and she associated it ever after with the security of coming to live with you…a gorgeous picture to colour my day. Thank you.
You and M are quite the duo. This was such a delightful read.
Poor little stinkpot!!!
🙂
I’m just the straight guy, UE….
fantastic photo Kate.
I think that we should sue the guy who said he was intelligent lookingtoday.
just look at him!!
LOL all I can see is searing reproach, Chris…
wonder if he answers to stinkpot ( seabove)?
he answers to a lot of othet names!!!!!
C-u-t-e! Great photo 😉
Not so cute if you have to smell him, Tok.