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16461. Ms. No - 9/6/2005 4:33:01 PM T'ful, I'm glad her suffering is done, but I'm sorry for your loss. Give my best to Mr. T'ful. 16462. Magoseph - 9/6/2005 4:53:02 PM Ms. No--I'm thinking of taking Butch outside this afternoon, chain him to a tree, hose him down, shampoo him, and then rinse him out, all that in the sun. Is that an acceptable way to treat him, I’m asking you Should I use a bathtub in the house, or a shower-stall? I mean, this dog weighs sixty pounds, is rather fierce and wants to run after every wild animal he smells in the area. I am double his weight,—will I be able to hold him, you think? He obeys me, so far, but what if he goes after me, being subjected to such treatment? I don't want to involve Flexy in this matter at all because it may be such a production, I'll be in bed the rest of the day recovering from the experience. 16463. Magoseph - 9/6/2005 4:55:15 PM Until now, I brushed him faithfully every day, but now I must bathe him somehow--he stinks too much.
16464. thoughtful - 9/6/2005 4:56:52 PM A/C, mags, ms no...thanks muchly. 16465. judithathome - 9/6/2005 5:31:57 PM Thoughtful, so sorry for your loss but if she was in that much pain, it's a blessing. 16466. Ms. No - 9/6/2005 6:34:14 PM Mags,
Theories abound on whether or when and how to wash dogs. When Billie starts to get too dusty/oily I generally put her in the tub and wash her with Baby Shampoo so that if it gets in her eyes it won't hurt her.
She does not like the bath.
She does not like the hose on the front patio.
She loves to lay in mud puddles at the park.
Butch may love a bath, there's no way to know until you try him at it. I'd say tie him on a short lead outside and try to bathe him there --- it'll cut down on clean-up in the house. Nothing like having to wipe half a dog off the bathroom floor, they shed like mad when you bathe them.
16467. Magoseph - 9/6/2005 7:15:57 PM Thanks, Ms. No--I will wash him outside as soon as it's warmer than today. I'm sure we'll have some days yet when it'll be warmer than just seventy degrees. 16468. Ms. No - 9/6/2005 9:42:21 PM I wouldn't worry about it being too cold yet. Remember, he's got a fur coat and is probably happier at 60 degrees than 80 degrees. As long as you bathe him when there's plenty of sunshine left in the day he should be fine.
16469. Magoseph - 9/6/2005 9:45:52 PM Oh, good then, I'll wash him tomorrow. Thanks a mil. 16470. thoughtful - 9/6/2005 9:59:28 PM Thanks, judithah. 16471. thoughtful - 9/6/2005 10:04:09 PM We used to wash our dogs in the tub...we'd get in naked with the dog. Our tub has glass doors with a detachable showerhead on a hose so it worked rather well...glass doors kept dog in, hose allowed us to direct the spray away from eyes and ears.
Most important not to get eyes or ears wet, esp since your pup has already had ear issues.
Dogs never like being washed but will tolerate it. Baby shampoo is good...or so is dog shampoo which pet stores will sell.
We also wash our cat on occasion and I find he really protests with what I think is comfortably warm water. He protests much less when I use cool water...don't know if dogs are the same, but there you are.
Of course some dogs have a natural odor which won't be washed away...our dear trixie who was part cocker spaniel had a distinct cocker spaniel odor...part of the joy of dog ownership. 16472. Magoseph - 9/6/2005 10:21:19 PM Ah, yes, the natural odor, I have to get used to that, but it sure is hard for me. I really like the house to smell fresh and clean. Now, it smells like Butch and me, his odor and my perfume, which lately I have come to spray around too much.
Oh, well, he's part of our life now. I just have to remember to bake some cookies before people come over. Judith today gave me a good idea. She suggested that I use some of these dryer sheets and sleek his coat with them.
Not a bad idea to use the bath with the shower and the enclosure. I have to put myself in a state of mind to cavort naked with Butch, though. 16473. thoughtful - 9/6/2005 10:31:38 PM cavorting naked with a dog is lots of fun!
also try febreze if you haven't tried it...it really works to eliminate odor.
we ran into some musty odor problems with furniture from the old house and that stuff really worked. After we polished and dusted the furniture, we sprayed the drawers with the febreze...smelled like febreze for awhile, but when that odor was gone, so was the mustiness. 16474. Magoseph - 9/6/2005 10:38:28 PM 
I want to get this gadget you see on the picture, actually, two or three. Have you used it?
16475. judithathome - 9/6/2005 11:13:12 PM Magos, I used to have a machine you plugged in and it used little discs of scented felt...it was great. This thing is much the same and I'm sure it works the very same.
The thing I would suggest is if you get it and like it, load up on the scented discs and keep them in reserve...the fact they stopped selling my machine's discs is what killed it for me. If you don't have enough of them (like if they stop making them) the machine is useless. 16476. Ms. No - 9/6/2005 11:26:26 PM You want to be careful about perfuming the dog --- he could have an allergic reaction. Also, if they smell too perfumey they have a habit of fixing that by finding something dead to go roll in. Nothing stinks like Corpse Blossom Doggie.
If he's clean but still has a really strong odor you might try brushing him with a little baking soda, just make sure you get it all off him so he doesn't lick it. I doubt it would hurt him, but it might make his mouth foamy and that tends to scare the neighbors. 16477. arkymalarky - 9/7/2005 12:27:43 AM I'm so sorry about your Mother-in-law, Thoughtful.
16478. jexster - 9/7/2005 2:11:38 AM I thought Banks was in Bombay...
I leave the Convention Center and head toward the French Quarter. I'm afraid to step out of my car, afraid of street corners where lights don't work. The empty city is no place for cowards. I park the car near the river. Then I see two transvestites in latex and fishnets bicycling down Toulouse Street. I follow them, thinking they might lead me to the New Orleans I visited so many times before. I was in my early 20s and that city was full of sex and alcohol and music. I remember driving down here in February one year, living in a van below the Quarter for a week. I remember being 20 years old and paying too much money to take Polaroids of a woman in a negligee. The tip, she said, determined the kind of outfit she wore.
Soon the transvestites are gone but Johnny White's, located on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans, is still open and serving drinks. "We never closed," the bartender tells me. It's the only bar open in the city. They serve warm beer and shots. As it gets darker, they light candles on the countertops.
"You looking for a story?" a guy at the bar asks me. I shrug my shoulders. Also inside the small bar are an Indian woman, and a man with his arms wrapped around his wife, holding a cigarette in her mouth. I ask for a Coke and the bartender says they only use Coke in mixed drinks, so I order a bottle of water instead. It cost me $2.
16479. Magoseph - 9/7/2005 3:02:56 AM
The man with the story is Greg Rogers. He was forced from his house yesterday at Louisiana and Clairborne, an area completely submerged. "I was the last person in the neighborhood," he says. "I had a month and a half worth of food, some books. I had my two dogs. SWAT showed up and said it was time to go. I told them I was fine, I didn't need rescuing. They said you're coming with us or we're killing your dogs." Rogers says the officers took him in a boat to an overpass and told him to start walking in the other direction. He has a windup radio with him and that's how he heard that Johnny White's was still open. "I was so happy to hear Johnny's was open," he says. He tells me he knows a bartender here. He sleeps on the bar's floor.
"I didn't want to leave my house," he says. "I was fine. What were they going to do? Take me to the Superdome where I'd get shot and robbed?"
Rogers sits on the chair drinking light beer. I ask him about his dogs, and he says he left enough food and water for them for two weeks. He says he can't get home without a boat. He tells me he was a Marine for eight years, and served in the Gulf, Bosnia, and Mogadishu. He won't reveal the unit he was with. He says they did some bad things.
After a while, the transvestites I saw earlier come staggering by. They're drunk and one of them is bleeding heavily. Apparently she fell off her bike. When someone offers help, she refuses.
It's almost dark now. Curfew is at 7. The only lights are the lights from a CNN crew down the street. "I wonder if I should go get my car," I say aloud.
"Go now before it's dark," the Indian woman says. She has half an unlit cigar in her mouth. "I'll be so worried about you. Especially if you don't have any weapons."
Suddenly the streets are filled with red berets. The 82nd Airborne, the Army elite, have fanned out across the neighborhood. They stop at the bar and ask if we have all we need. The bar manager says we need food and water. She tells them that people have been stopping by the bar for supplies and they've been feeding them. The berets ask her about security. Security's been fine, the manager says. "We know all the bad people. They don't bother us."
16480. Magoseph - 9/7/2005 3:04:46 AM
I walk to my car and get a gallon of water and two Slim Fast bars, which I give to Rogers. He puts the bars on top of his guitar case, hands the water across the bar. "I was fine at my house," he says bitterly. "Now I'm going to lose my dogs."
A man in leather pants, a blue shirt, with long black hair and tattoos down his forearms, arrives at the bar with a cooler full of medical supplies. The bartender is now on the other end of the counter, doing speed. "I'm not really a bartender," he tells me. "I'm a drunk. I was just helping out." This is still the city I visited, I decide, concentrated into one bar.
The medic dresses Rogers' wounds. He has cuts on his legs and arms, apparently from diving into the water a few days ago to save his neighbor, who had been blown off the roof of her house by a helicopter. He had to walk all day and swim to get to Johnny White's last night. He says he was stopped and searched eight times. I spy the sign behind the bar, "Never Closed."
It seems to get hotter in New Orleans now that it's totally dark. Down the street, some lanterns burn. The humidity has increased. The medic's name is Ride Hamilton. "I'm not really a medic," he says, just like the bartender is not really a bartender. "But I'm the only medic here. I wear this uniform because it helps me get through stuff." I wonder to myself what kind of medic wears leather pants, especially in this heat.
I ask him where he learned how to do these things. He says he watches a lot of military documentaries. (The New York Times reported that Hamilton is a firefighter.) He says he stitched up a guy a few days ago, using a sewing needle and fishing line. FEMA left the stitches in. Said they were as good as any stitches they had ever seen.
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