My Little Tar Doggy

I headed this "My Little Tar Doggy", and let me assure you, there was no racial slur intended, I was being quite literal. If you notice in the previous post, there is a picture of the blacktop that has "sunk" due to a mole that lives under my front gardens (where there should technically be landscaping, but we are waiting until we can afford to reside the house, long story). So, this mole, along with the chipmunk nest in the garage, has made Brutus a possessed and very content to stay outside all day kind of dog.

Last weekend when Don was up, he brought with this tar stuff that had little stones in it to patch the hole in the drive way. First problem, it never dried, second problem, the said mole just dug right back through it. In doing so, Brutus felt the need to dig too, and when I went out there on Thursday night, his paws (webs included) were packed with black tar, and he even had little speckles of it on his body. To me, they instantly looked like wood ticks, because frankly, everything looks like a wood tick these days, but thankfully only two of the dark spots were.

The first thing I had to do was figure out a way to smoosh the loose tar that was all over the drive way back into the critter hole, and then cover it with a board and something heavy enough to keep Brutus out of there. The actual tar bucket did a pretty good job. The next day he was able to get a little bit of tar out of the side, but not too bad.

So, now, how on earth was I going to get this black sticky tar off of him so he could come in the house for the night??? Good question. My first thought was to look around for some "GOOP". I've heard it can remove just about anything, but I had no luck finding it. About a half an hour into my search to find something that would dissolve the tar on MY hands, I found this orange cream cleaner, and it seemed to do a fairly good job. So, I filled the bathtub up with warm soapy water, and sat down in the garage to begin the mission of cleaning the tar off of Brutus's feet. He's sensitive about having his feet and ears touched, but during this particular time, he just had to get over it. Either that, or sleep in the garage, and I'm pretty sure he's too spoiled for that at this point. Surprisingly, the orange stuff did a pretty good job. He still had tar packed into his toe nails, but on the fleshy parts his feet were pretty clean. I didn't want it sitting on his skin for too long, so that was why I had gotten the bathtub ready before I did his feet. So, in he went, and he wasn't very happy about it. He was filthy. I had picked up some new shampoo for him for sensitive skin, so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. I didn't think he had flees, but I'm sure that being washed twice a week washes away his natural oils that protect his skin. He also has tons of ear bites under his ears again. So much for the dryer sheet doing it's job. Someone also said that "Skin so Soft" from Avon was safe for dogs, so I may rub some of that on his ears tomorrow before he spends the day outside.

Anyway, I got him all cleaned up, de-ticked and dried off, and we were laying in bed snuggling, and when he rolled over for a belly rub, there's a hunk of tar stuck to his scrotum. Oy Vey!! Some things just never end!

On Saturday, Don built an awesome gate on the deck of our house so Brutus could be out on the deck and not be tied up. It's really quite pretty. The problem is, Sophie has been trailing Brutus, and she seems to think that if Brutus can be on the deck, so should she. Not the case. I really don't trust that little kitty girl to not go mousing, and I will be darned if I'm going to start dealing with worms. I completely draw the line at ticks. She will be an inside the house girl!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know that ours went too fast, which is always a good sign of a good weekend.