Dear Ferret Folks-

When I left off yesterday I was reaching for the Noble Allis Chompers
after *silencing* the ferrets, who were scratching madly at the base of
the bathroom door from what they obviously considered the wrong side.
They wanted to come in as badly as I wanted to keep them out. There was
barely room in the bathroom for me, the dog, and her incredible ODOR.
If I had been in full possession of my faculties at the time I would
have made the effort to put the weasels back into their cage while I
bathed Allis, but that was only a passing concern. What was a much
greater concern at the time was the thought of Allis rolling on the
living room rug, Allis rolling on the living room sofa, Allis rolling
on the guest room rug, Allis doing ALL of those things and imprinting
her odor upon my household for the rest of recorded time while I tried
to round up the weasels, so they remained loose.

Ordering all forty five pounds of Allis into the tub doesn't work,
a tug on her collar is necessary. In this case that involved direct
contact with whatever it was that she had rolled in and I was *not*
pleased, no, not pleased at all. As a form of mute protest she splashed
as much as possible on her way into the tub, and the unpleasant
moistening of Alexandra began. I had stripped down to my flannel
nightgown by then. It's amazing how absorbent those things are, really.
Black fur sticks to them really well, too. My dog is both black and
white but I don't think she bothers to shed her white fur, only the
black as it has the greater contrast against me, the bathroom floor,
and fixtures.

Allis does not sit still in the tub. Oh, she will sit in one spot in
abject misery while I soap her for two or three minutes at a time, but
she really wants to vault out of the tub and onto the bathroom floor,
slopping several gallons of water onto the bathroom floor as she does
so. I need to restrain her with one hand to her collar. And I was
restraining her with one hand to her collar when either Ping or Puma (I
suspect Puma, she is the more clever of the two and knows some things
about leverage) finally managed to open the bathroom door. And Ping, my
buddy Ping, ever up for a new thrill decided to HELP me bathe Allis.

There I was, sopping wet, furred, smelly, hair hanging down into my
face and sticking to it, holding a dog in full Power Sulk by the collar
who was just *poised* to blow out of the tub at any second, and a
WEASEL basically climbed up my *ss, up my back, onto my shoulder,
and out onto the arm I was using to restrain the dog as if it were a
bridge.

You know, I didn't like this much.

Allis didn't like it much either.

She began to make a sort of a humming sound that let me know she was
going out of her *mind* because she was being held in a tub of water
and lathered against her will by the alpha she hoomin, and it looked
like this *&^%*&( weasel was about to climb on her back and you know,
she just wasn't happy about it. This was more than just an affront to
her dignity, this was not to be borne- no way, no how. She was going
to have to jump out of the tub and to the devil with the consequences.

And I knew it was going to happen and I was going to get *really* wet,
I mean really, really wet. There would be paws and dog toenails and
soap foam and fur and sudsy water EVERYWHERE.

End Part Two
Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5489]