Indian Clay...Or Is It?

Oliver greeted me with his usual peppiness. I brought him outside
where I sat at our stone table and bench and checked-out my mail while
he wandered, looking for lizards and smelling the scents of the
neighbors' dogs. I look up for him frequently because although he
rarely wanders, the side gate out to the front yard is open.

About twenty-seconds after I check for him, I look up again and he is
gone. I call for him; no fluffy white head pops up from behind the
bushes. I take a little walk and find that he has, indeed, wandered to
the front yard.

He has leaves all over him and when I call for him, he shakes them off
before heading my way. As he gets closer it quickly becomes clear that
leaves are not the only things on him.

My dog is covered in POO! I mean, gooey, smeared, wet, fresh,
stinky-winky poo! By the looks of it, the Budweiser holiday
Clydesdales were passing through the neighborhood and decided to leave
a little present in our front yard. No, make that a BIG present!

One paw is covered like he's wearing a mitten woven with the
finest...doodoo. There's a giant smear along one side of his back,
there's some on his back leg and on the side of his face. I lift his
ear. Yup, it's gotten INTO my dog's ear. It looks like he had an
Indian clay-tossing contest with neighborhood teenagers or something!

There's actually so much of it that I find it hysterical rather than
disgusting. Not that it wasn't disgusting. It was, but Oliver has
never been a poo diver, as it were. He won't even eat anything off the
floor (see "Marbles" entry below!).

Apparently he chose to make up for six months of being world's
cleanest dog with one big effort.

Needless to say, he was hosed down in the yard, scrubbed, soaped,
sanitized, and fire hosed within an inch of his life.
He is a stinky pup no more.