I must admit, I wasn’t as dashing in my delivery.  It was more like…”WHAT IN THE SAM HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING???????”

And then…”AAGGHHHHHHHHHHHH…DON’T TOUCH ME!!!!!!!!”

And then…”FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!  As if I don’t have enough to do today.”

I finally stopped yelling.  And then took a breath.  And started laughing.

Because, truth be told, the little guy is SUCH a love.  Remember, his name is Angus, after the Celtic/Irish God of Love Aengus.  And he just sort of smiled at me.  (He does smile.  Especially when he’s saying “good morning” to me, as if he hasn’t seen me in days and days and days, instead of like, eight hours.  Anyway, he wraps a foreleg around my leg and looks up at me and bares his teeth in a smile.  I knew another Springer who did that all the time.  Her name was Judy.  She was a love too.  But I digress.)

Our little guy just discovered the joys of summer.  Fresh, green, wet, stinky cow poop.  Cow dung.  Cow patties.  Cow manure.  Bovine feces.  Fresh and thick and just made for adorning oneself in.

There goes the “aaaggghhhhhh” again.  Things that make me insane, nuts0, bat-guano-crazy, off-my-rocker mad.

When he finally listened to my whistle, and popped his cute little head up over the sage brush down yonder, I thought to myself, “Self, you need to work on the whole ‘whistle and he will come’ thingy.”  He realized I meant business and started bounding happily back across the field.  I thought he looked a tad bit odd.  His ears were flapping, like they always do when he streaks across the pasture, his mouth was open and his tongue was hanging out, as if to announce to the world how incredibly happy and good his life is.  But something just looked off.  It almost looked as if he was wearing a big, brown collar (sort of a tribute to Queen Elizabeth if you will).  I said to myself, “Self, that looks odd.  What is he wearing?”

Then he got closer and I could see that the “collar” extended down his back!  And, in reality, was not a collar, but a thick, wet, greenish, goopyish layer of cow shit.  (Sorry, had to use the profanity finally.)  All of a sudden, seemingly simultaneously, the synapses did what synapses do…and my brain coalesced around one, bright, burning, so irritating thought: “Self, you now have to give that dog a bath.  He done gone and rolled in some mighty fierce-looking cow dung.”

Aaaaghhhhhhh…………………..

So, me, being as intrepid (and yes, sometimes dashing, if I do say so myself) as good ol’ Han Solo, set off to complete the task at hand.

I fired off instructions to my aide-de-camp (who unfortunately did not get her picture taken, but was none-the-less indispensable to the exercise) who set about collecting the necessary accoutrements in record time.

And then the fun began.  Angus, for all of his adorable, lovingness, does not like 1)being restrained and 2)being washed.

I tried to explain to him, in my best translation of canine-speak, that to avoid the bone-chilling numbness of frigid well-water, one would be wise to steer clear of the squishy, olfactory-stimulating, green stuff.  I think he pretended not to hear me.

And then I simply couldn’t take anymore.  Plus, he was shivering.  (It is VERY cold by the time you get down a bit into the well.  See much earlier posts about the things I learned…as in, trying to fill up a child’s inflatable swimming pool with well water at almost 9000 feet of elevation will most assuredly bring on hypothermia and frostbite.)

Anyway.  See the finished product.

Not perfect.  But close.

Such an adorable, happy little guy.  He’s lucky he’s so cute.