A dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do

It began quietly enough, as a routine stroll through the neighborhood so Aquinnah, our chocolate lab, could take care of whatever business needed taking care of before he hunkered down for a nice long nap in his favorite chair.

Even when the crisis struck, there was no real indication of a problem. After all, Aquinnah (Quinn, for short) often rolls around in mysterious substances that usually leave no trace once he gets back on his feet.

But this particular on-his-back frolic in our leaf-covered driveway was different. Once Quinn and I got inside, it became clear that he had discovered the malodorous mother lode of muck. He exuded a strong, rank, unrecognizable and decidedly unpleasant odor. At least to the human nose; he seemed quite pleased with himself.

I wiped Quinn down with a wet towel. Naively assuming that the smell was gone or it would wear off, I then went for a walk, only to return a half hour later to find that the odor was so overwhelming I could barely get near Quinn.

To make matters worse, when I released our puppy, Martha, from her kennel, she immediately jumped on top of Quinn as he lay in his chair and began licking his back in an unmistakable display of blissfully obsessive canine behavior.

The solution was unpleasant, but clear.

We don’t bathe our dogs all that often, and we’re certainly not in the habit of doing so when it’s a brisk 38 degrees outside. But there was no choice. I couldn’t get 75 pounds of pooch into the shower or the bathtub by myself, so Quinn and I headed out to the front yard. He screamed pitifully as I hosed him down, lathered him up and rinsed him off.

In his defense, the water was cold. (I know because I got plenty of it on myself.) But Quinn’s howls of protest were so ridiculously loud and ear-splitting it’s a wonder no one filed an abuse complaint.

One hour, several towels, a load of laundry and a change of clothes later, Quinn and I were back in our respective chairs, recuperating from our ordeal.

My rest was fleeting, however. As Quinn and I settled down, Martha emerged from one of her periodic voyages of discovery with a dust bunny hanging from her mouth. Being Martha, she was determined to eat it before I could take it away. So she began running around the house like some deranged prison escapee, determined to elude capture.

I won that battle - more of a skirmish, really, in a long war in which the four-legged combatants are a wily and determined foe. Although my wife and I have superior intelligence (?) on our side, the enemy is blessed with stealth, cunning and agility. And even an occasional canine alliance with our cats, if that's what it takes to defeat "the humans."

Quinn and Martha may be mischievous scoundrels with an impish sense of humor and an uncanny knack for knowing how to irritate their owners. Still, as Roger Caras once said: "Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”