Rub A Dub Dub There's a Dog in My Tub

The other night my husband went out to get his haircut during a time that directly coincided with bathtime. As you know from my previous stories that my dog Murphy cannot be trusted to roam the house alone when my husband leaves. He is notorious for stealing God knows what and either destroying the found item on site or doing a drive-by to show you what prize he has scored while whipping his head back and forth. To combat this I now lock him in the bathroom with my daughter and I during bathtime if I am the only parent home. This was the case the other night.

With the three of us jammed into a 5x5 space I filled up the bathtub with bubbles and hoisted my daughter in to get clean. No sooner had I put her in had my dog bellied up to the big drinking fountain and helped himself. This is one of my daughter's favorite things and it always triggers a laugh or squel of delight.

A sidenote: My dog pukes when he drinks too much water, so my husband and I have developed this highly accute sensor to hear him drinking and then yell at him to stop right before the 'puke point.' We do this by belloring at the top of our lungs three times "OKAY!!!" For whatever reason Murphy likes us to yell this three times and rarely, rarely ever quits before we have reached a ridiculous level of loudness and are extremely pissed that we have exherted ourselves over him drinking too much water.

So right on cue I begin my series of saying OKAY and increasing my volume everytime it leaves my mouth. For whatever reason Murphy thought that the OKAY combined with the tapping of the tub side, which I did to get his attention, meant why don't you come on in? He turned his head to the side to give me one last glance before he lifted up a foot and plunged it into the bathtub. In retrospect I think he was looking at me for approval to actually enter the water, I gave him a good boy smile/nod since I was telling him good boy for not drinking. Total miscommunication and next thing I know he has one of his four paws submerged. Quickly realizing what was going on I changed my tone and told him in a more threatening way that if he put one more paw in that water he was getting a bath since I figured the level of water clean up would be about equal since he would have to then take two paws out which would require a jump back move. He apparently accepted my challenge and put his other paw in.

I looked at my daughter and saw a bit of fear but a lot of joy in eyes as I shoved Murphy's back end into the tub. What I didn't really account for was his ridiculous size that took up over three fourths of the standard size tub. My daughter was pressed against the front corner of the tub because Murphy was not all the way to his end which caused her to be sardined at the drain end. It was at this point I realized I again wasn't winning mother of the year and maybe hadn't thought this whole idea totally through. I pushed Murphy inch by inch towards the far end of the tub which gave her just enough room to pry her chest off the bathtub wall.

I took the tupperware bowl that my daughter liked to play with and dumped water over Murphy's head, back, legs, and undercoat. My daughter had snapped out of her shock that her 95 pound brother was actually bathing with her and was all into getting some soap on her hands to lather him up. Of course the only soap that was in arms reach was the baby nighttime bath soap so we had no choice but to use it. While she soaped up the dog I soaped up her and thought it was a pretty impressive assembly line I had created. I finshed her in 30 second flat while she had barely made a hand sized soap sud on him, all the while demanding more soap. I tried to accomodate her requests in order to keep the peace and avoid a tatrum at all cost. That was the last thing I needed was to have a toddler screaming her lights out and wanting to get out of the bath immediately while having Murphy sitting there all soaped up. Unattended I am sure he would have fled the scene.

When we were finally rinsing him off, well me, not her, she was still trying to lather him up, I noticed the murky color of the water. It was literally a grayish tone that would be comparable to mixing up some quick-set cement powder in too much water. That is when I realized I had failed to plan out the exit strategy. I knew Murphy would not sit in the tub alone so I opted to unload him first. I quick darted from the room into the hall where I knew a beach towel laid (we are moving, things are in odd places, but I was thankful). Even though it was just for a second my mind raced that again no mother of the year award. I just left my lab sitting in a dirtest bubble bath in the history of bubble baths with my 21 month old daughter.

I spread the beach towel on the floor and instructed Murphy to get out. Usually when we give him a bath we have multiple towels on hand to dry him off in the shower, yeah we usually give showers not baths, and then have him step out on a towel to cut down on the 'water everywhere' factor. Obviously this time my hands were tied. I told him to get out, which he didn't wait for the second command to act on. In one fell swoop he launched himself out of the tub and onto the towel. From there he shook, and shook, and shook. He shook so much that my daughter got scared and started to wail. (Mind you she was still sitting in the cement water.) At this point I was helpless to get her because he went from shaking to darting in between my legs, rolling over on his back, and flaying in every direction. Like I said this bathroom is small. If he is standing up in it there is only floor space for me to be pinned against the vanity or against the tub, which are on opposite sides of the room.

I retrieved the towel from the floor and tried to wipe him down as best I could. The bathroom damage was already done. There was water everywhere. I decided he and the bathroom were a lost cause and I needed to rescue my baby who was probably dirtier than when she started her bath.

I turned on the faucet again and held her in my arm like a football, which at this age is no small feat since she is pretty freaking heavy. I washed her off the best I could while Murphy continued his wild thrashing behind us. I called it good as I saw no visible dirt on her and unplugged the drain. As I finished drying her off I looked back into the tub and saw what seemed to be the remains of a sand/gravel pit. It was horrible. (The next night my husband actually cleaned the tub before we put her back in it becuase it had so much standing dirt.)

We made our way out of the bathroom to go get her dressed. We exited the war scene first with Murphy right behind us. As soon as his paws hit the carpet he was off like a shot down the stairs. With him out of the bathroom I noticed there was a severe amount of standing water that I needed to quickly attend to. I set my daughter down and retrieved another towel to mop up with.

Now I am not sure what it is with dogs and baths. It gives them a ridiculous level of energy that they never had before. Murphy was doing mach 3 around the living room and then back up the stairs at us. When Murphy came charging past us my daughter must have tried to quick run back into the bathroom but instead lost her footing on the super slick wet floor and went down like a ton of bricks. This of course was followed by hysterical crying and I really did feel bad. Fortunately she was totally fine and again just scared.

I finally got the water all cleaned up, my daughter all outfitted in her pjs, and we all went downstairs to talk to grandma on Skype. My husband got home a little while later and inquired about the horrible smell as he walked in the door. I casually told him it was Murphy and he had taken a bath. It didn't take him long to put together the pieces that I had given our dog and our daughter a bath in the same bathtub at the same time. He was repulsed but seemed somewhat consoled when I told him I washed her off. He was again quickly repulsed when he went up to check out the bathroom's condition and noticed the dirt remenents in the tub. Thankfully no one was injured during this whole fiasco and I will admit after the fact not one of my better ideas, but on the bright side I did give both the dog and the kid a bath all in one fell swoop which in hind sight was a real time saver.