Good Sports; De-Skunking; The John Woo School of Dog Washing

Currently Reading: Dune: The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

This is a pretty great sports season. Right now, football has just wrapped up with a fairly entertaining Super Bowl (don't get me started on the Geritol half-time show though). Hockey is in full swing, basketball is in full swing and spring training for baseball is right around the corner.

We're also about to start two really great international sports events. Starting Friday and running through the 26th, we have the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. I am totally an Olympics junkie so I'll be cramming in as many hours in front of the TV as I can. I especially like the winter games. I like the skiiing events and the hockey. Figure skating doesn't much thrill me but that fast-paced short-track skating is pretty cool.

And next month, starting March 3 and running through March 20 we have the first World Baseball Classic. This is something they've been trying to get set up for a while now. With all the pro players in the world in baseball, many of them ending up here in the US, there has been a move on to have a REAL World Series. US vs Japan vs Mexico vs whoever else wants to come in. We've taken various baseball teams on tour during spring training. There's always a team that goes over to Japan. But until this year, they've never been able to set up a tournament like this. Usually it's been a matter of conflicting schedules. Other countries wanted to hold the thing smack in the middle of our season. Can't do that. Or they'd try to hold it during someone ELSE'S season. Can't do that either. They finally came to an agreement and it'll be held this March. Not sure how much coverage it's going to get on TV but I'm going to watch as much of it as I can. I'm interested to see how some of these teams do. Quite a few from Latin America are loaded with pro players from the US. But Cuba, for example, we have NO idea what level of baseball they're playing down there. And Japan. We know about the pros that came over to the US but as a team, we only meet them once a year. And let's not forget China, Korea, Taipei, Australia, South Africa, and the others. This should be a really cool event.

-----

Had a de-skunking yesterday. Lady called in asking if she could bring in her dog. It had been skunked. Let me tell you, you may think skunk smells bad when you drive by road kill but that's mild compared to what it smells like when you get a good whiff of it right up close.

The woman showed up and I came to the front of the salon from the back and I got a full nose of that dog right when I walked through the door. Talk about over-powering. That's some serious skunk.

Naturally since I was the bather on duty yesterday, it fell to me to remove the scent. We've got a special de-skunking shampoo that we use. It's good for any odor actually but it's especially good for skunk. The great part about it is that you can use it at full concentration or water it down depending on the smell. What we do is we start at 6 to 1 and make it stronger with each bath. If it doesn't work watered down, make it a little stronger and try again. Pretty simple.

This particular dog got it right between the eyes which is about the worst place a dog can get sprayed. I had the rest of the dog skunk-free after the second wash but the head, that was just not coming out. What makes it so bad is that you can't use it at full concentration on the face. Hurts the eyes you see. So while the dog was MOSTLY skunk-free in the end, the face still smelled a little.

When the woman came to pick up her dog she was THRILLED. She said, "He doesn't stink anymore!" and that I did a fabulous job. Tipped me 5 bucks which was really nice of her. Sort of made up for the fact that I had to inhale skunk for half an hour :-)

-----

Everyone has a dog washing style. Most people follow the standard school of tub washing. It's sort of like washing dishes only the dishes don't shake water and soap on you in the middle.

Me, I'm from the John Woo school of dog washing.

First off, a bit of explaining. John Woo is a Chinese movie director. Made lots of crime movies in Hong Kong with Chow Yun Fat in Hong Kong before he came over to the US. You may have seen Hard Boiled or The Killer. Those two run every now and then on cable. They're very stylish and very violent. They're always filled with lessons about honor and that sort of thing. The hero, whether he's a police man or a crime lord, always follows a strict code of ethics.

The action is very distinct too. In these movies the hero, usually Chow Yun Fat, holds his gun sideways if he's using just ONE gun. Quite often he's got two guns blazing. You're also likely to see the hero do some acrobatic shooting. He'll leap over something while firing off round after round, and then land with a tuck-and-roll that leaves him safely behind something bullet-proof.

That's me washing the big dogs. We've got this one HUGE tub at work that's about 2 feet longer than the other tubs. It's got its own ramp so you don't have to lift the dogs over the side. You can just lead them up and in. What I like to do is use the one hose that's meant to go with that tub plus the extra hose we have that we use for those dogs who refuse to get into ANY tub. It's just a faucet on the wall but it's fairly close to the big tub.

So picture it. There's a HUGE lab in the tub. I've got the one hose going, sideways of course, then I'll reach over and pick up the other one and get some of that two-hose action going. When the dog starts to shake, I'll do my leaping-while-squirting move so that I end up out of range or over by the doorway, ready to duck out before I get drenched.

All I need now are some white doves to release once the dog is washed :-)

.