Man's Best Friend - HA!!

When a dog is properly loved, fed, walked and allowed to sleep in my bed, why does it repay me by disappearing into the 28 degree fog and then eating and rolling around in the nastiest thing it can find?

Both our dogs disappeared this morning while the person who was supposed to be watching them got sidetracked with getting ready to bike to work.  He shall, of course, remain unnamed.  When he sauntered into the house, casually asking where the dogs were, everyone sprang into action because we know how quickly they can move.  My spring was slower than everyone else because my children had taken both my pairs of suitable dog-finding shoes (the curse of the three of us wearing the same shoe size!) leaving me to clomp through the RV park in my wood soled Swedish clogs.  After fifteen minutes of trying to jog across a frozen field in the clogs I heard the blessed tinkle of a dog tag against a collar.  Shakespeare was happily on the other side of the 6 foot privacy fence.  Realizing that he could escape before I ever made it back inside the park I took the only course of action that instantly sprang to mind.  I scaled the fence in the Swedish clogs and then dropped like a ninja to the other side.

Okay, I did scale the fence.  I did drop to the other side but I was madly trying not to twist an ankle in the process.  I'm sure I looked nothing like a ninja and the jolt through my calcaneus was anything but stealthy.  And there was my dog, happily covered in what I thought was poo but merely turned out to be someone's vomit.

#1 came running toward us, open armed with joy at finding the dog, until I found myself screaming across the park (at 8 am, I might add), "Don't touch him.  He's disgusting!"  Between the two of us, we managed to herd him toward the RV where I did my best to leash him without touching him and haul his repulsive body to the shower.  #2 was thrilled to announce that he found Holly patiently waiting for us on top of the picnic table and that he had put her inside.  Where I discovered that she, too, had cavorted in vomit and had so thoughtfully expressed her joy at being found by rolling through my bed.

Why?  Why?  WHY???

Before 9 o'clock I had both dogs showered, couch scrubbed, floor scrubbed and sheets stripped and in the wash.  Oh, yes, and I squeezed in a shower of my own.  I haven't stopped glaring at the dogs and I keep thinking I can smell vomit somewhere in the RV.  It may just be their breath.  I guess my next task is brushing their teeth.