The Wolf Crazies: Bath Blues

I got several requests for more pictures, so this post is pretty image heavy. I could take and stare at pictures of Bast all day because I think he's an outrageously handsome dog, so here you go.

I don't really like to bathe my dogs a whole lot. For one, I'm lazy and it's a trial. Two, I don't like to dry their skin out with excessive washing. My older dog, Grendel, rarely needs to be washed. She's a clean little critter and can go months and months before she develops a dog funk.

You can imagine my dismay, then, when I got a wolfdog and learned all about the fun world of scent rolling. Now, lots of dogs scent roll, too - it's a pretty standard dog trope to roll on horrible things. With wolfdogs, it's almost compulsive. They all MUST roll on terrible, terrible things.

And they looked totally blissed out while they do it.

We hadn't had Bast for 2 months before his scent rolling behavior became outrageous. While I was overseas, my best friend kept Bast for me and took him for regular walks in a woody area near her house. Bast managed to find a rotted black pig corpse and scent roll in inside the cavernous remains of its chest, like some messed up Star Wars tribute. The smell took weeks to get out of his fur - when I came back from France several weeks later, it was still lingering around behind his ears.

So while I would love to not bathe Bast very often, he also likes to sleep in bed with me, and I'm not keen on sharing my linens with whatever cologne he found - Eau de Cat Turds doesn't really float my boat, you know?

His stankiness not withstanding, Bast also has flea and tick bite hypersensitivity, which requires us to be very proactive about making sure he doesn't get fleas or ticks. To help him out with this, he gets a regular flea bath every few weeks.

I used to have to bathe Bast in the tub, which was frankly exhausting for both of us. Bast's fur is very water-resistant, and there's only so much damage a pitcher can do.

Plus, he gets pissed.

Like, mega pissed.

I slept lightly that night.

And the indignity of being tortured for my amusement can be too much to bear.

I'm kind of a jackass.

Now, with a yard, I can hose him off outside, which is a lot easier but still comes with its own set of challenges. As you can probably guess from the murderous stares in the pictures above, Bast doesn't exactly like getting a bath and would rather avoid it. To keep him close by, I just go ahead and leash him and then just spray the hell out out of him while he paces around me, looking every bit a savage, soggy hellbeast.