dog breATH

About ten minutes ago, I set myself up in the Tod (Truck of Destiny) with the intention of rattling off a piece about the highs and lows of campsite showering. It was going to be thrill-a-minute stuff. Regrettably, the occasion has been hijacked by my older dog Mali, whose breath hit me like a wave the moment I opened the door.

Like his father before him (Rob), Mali has a drinking problem insofar that he refuses to do so. When Mali does drink, Rob and I lock eyes in mutual delight. Our mouths hang open in Os. Sometimes we bend our knees and ball our fists in encouragement but usually we stand perfectly still in case we distract the dog and spoil the moment. We listen to him lapping up the water because it is the best sound, a sound superior even to a spoon cracking the surface of a crème brûlée, or the opening bars of Rasputin.

Sometimes we add water to Mali’s food to up his intake. But not only is the dog too lazy to drink (because it must be laziness — he will literally eat a nail file so it is not the taste), he is also too lazy to wee. Once dinner is inhaled, the odds of coaxing 75lbs of geriatric chocolate labrador outside are as slim as his waistline is not. So we have a choice — latent kidney failure or rancid breath. One is expensive, one is free.

He is panting but he still won’t drink. The Tod has encased the smell like heat in a sauna. It is like a combination of unwiped bums and chicken. It stings the eyes and burns the back of the throat. As I type, I can feel his hot breath on the back of my neck, like a serial killer that has seconds previously indulged in a KFC Bargain Bucket. The smell is interspersed with whinging, retching and his personal favourite, attention-coughing.

And so, I’m afraid, instead of writing an in-depth evaluation on the campsite showers of Europe’s west coast (Portugal’s have marginally better pressure than Spain’s on the whole), I am simultaneously trying to hold my nose whilst shoving my dog’s water bowl under his. He persistently turns his face away like a toddler refusing a forkful of cold, floppy broccoli hours after Sunday lunch is over. I am the shattered and frustrated parent, making zooming noises, pretending the fork is an aeroplane.