The Rainbox

Sometimes humans baffle me. Sometimes their things baffle me even more. Take the rainbox, for instance. Mom and Dad have a big glass one. Every morning after they get up, they get in the big glass rainbox, close the door, and stand in the rain. This morning Mom got up and got ready to go in the rainbox. The door was open, so I stuck my head inside to check out the rain.

“Do you want to go in?” Mom asked.

I figured going inside would be the perfect way to figure this thing out, so I stepped in. Mom came in with me, took off my tag collar, and shut the door.

The first thing I noticed was that the rain in the box was hot, not cold like normal outside rain. Odd. And then I noticed that Mom could aim the rain, and she was aiming it at me! I was getting soaked to the skin, but Mom was also petting me and telling me I was a good boy, so that wasn’t so bad. At least it wasn’t so bad at first. After awhile, I was completely drenched. Even though the water was a nice temperature, I really don’t like being quite that wet.

And then it hit me - the rainbox is like a vertical bath! Blech!

Sure enough, the doggie shampoo came next. Being the good boy I am, I tolerated the entire annoying process: sudsing and rinsing and even an attempt at drying (as if a couple of big beach towels would ever be enough to dry all of my luxuriant fluff). And not a hair dryer to be found!

And then things got worse. Mom got the camera!

Don’t you dare take my picture!

I’m going to eat that camera.

Maybe if I ignore her she’ll go away.

What will my fans think?!

Even the sad eyes didn’t work.

So I got up on the bed and used the new cover
as a big towel.

At least BJ had the decency not to stare and laugh.

Sadly, this is about the best my drying efforts could manage.

BTW, if you notice in my pictures that my feet have a bit of a reddish-rust cast, that’s because I spend so much time standing in the pool. Something about the pool’s chemistry combined with my chemistry turns my foot-fluff that color. Mom says that a Greyhound that used to live here, named Garak, spent a lot of time standing in the pool and his feet turned the same color.

Anyway, after rubbing on the bed cover didn’t succeed in returning my fluff to its normal stunning fluffiness, I figured I’d have to take some drastic action. If I went outside and ran around fast enough, that would be sort of like a hair dryer; it wouldn’t be hot, but it would be dry (it’s almost always dry here in the desert).

While I was running around, something really cool happened that made up for the indignation of having to wear the guise of a drowned Russian rat…

BJ played with me again!

And then Captain Jack joined in!

Peaches came out and watched us play. She even ran around a little bit, but with only one back leg, she couldn’t really keep up. But that didn’t stop us!

I finally wore BJ out, but I wasn’t yet dry so I grabbed a rawhide…

…and ran around by myself for a while.

And then I walked around for a while.

Finally a bit of a breeze started to blow,
so I stood facing into it to get the last
bit of dampness out of my fluff.

And then it was time for breakfast!

We had pork brisket for breakfast. It was super yummy, but we each only got one piece. Mom seems to think that since I’ve gained almost 10 pounds since moving in (which I needed), I shouldn’t be allowed to eat like I did when I first got here. Those were the days! I’d get two or three pieces of meat at every meal, and sometimes three meals a day. Now I only get two meals a day, and only one or two pieces at each meal. Mom says it’s so I can “maintain” my weight. *SIGH* I think I liked it better when I was too skinny.

After breakfast it was brushing time. Brushing follows breakfast everyday, but I guess I needed it particularly bad after my vertical rainbox bath because Mom used all three of the brushes on me.

The three brushes

I really only like it when she uses the brush on the right - the soft one - because the other two sometimes get caught in tangles and pull on my fluff. The weirdo Greyhounds like all three of the brushes and are always shoving to get close to Mom whenever she has any of them. I bet they wouldn’t do that if they had fluff long enough to get tangled. Heck, they don’t have any fluff at all - just short little hairs like I have on my face. Losers.

Once the dreaded brushing was finished (Mom said I looked really good, so I guess it was worth enduring), it was time to get dressed again. Most of the time I only wear my tag collar, but when we go out somewhere I also get to wear my fancy Celtic Knotwork Hounds collar.

Uncle Mike made the collar for me and carved the knotwork into it. Mom painted it with shiny silver and gold paint. The colors go really well with the colors of my fluff. Normally when they make a collar like this, they also put copper paint on the edges, but this is a one-of-a-kind version made just for me.

I guess I should show you my tag collar, too, while I’m showing off my wardrobe. You’ve probably caught glimpses of it in other pictures of me, but here it is right after Mom put it back on me, before it had time to disappear under all my fluff:

My ID tags and license tag are in the little bag,
that way I always have ID on me.

Mom made the tag collar for me right after I moved in, which was a whole lot nicer than what she did to me today in the rainbox. Still, BJ did play with me afterward. Maybe next time Mom asks me into the rainbox I’ll go in just so me and BJ can play again later. Then again…maybe not.

–Sergei