"CHI-WOW-WOW!"

"CHI-WOW-WOW!"

by

Geoffrey K. Graves

Comrade Pooches:

As your king who possesses paramount stature to establish the laws of the canine world, I am issuing a full red rover alert. Mes Amies, this is serious stuff. As I write, I am in a state of high dudgeon. The time has come to reassert our dominance on the planet and unite to fight the hated bath and those who give them. Enough is enough! I am especially addressing you puppies who are our future.

A little background for the few of you who do not know me personally: They call me Pedro which is ridiculous because I know my own name and it is Titan. I am part chihuahua, part dachshund accounting for my long ears, and a kennel-full of other noble breeds entitling me to the proud heraldry of mongrel. Do not be jealous.

Friends, my fuse has been lit. My ignorant would-be dictators have done it again, man-gone it! Just when I'd got my personalized aroma blended to perfection, they scrubbed me up with some vile shampoopoo called Herbal Waters leaving me dampened in body and spirit as I watched my carefully cultivated aromatics swirl downward into the soul sucking sink drain. Humiliation. On the morrow, my feistier four-legged friends will laugh me out of the park due to my newly imposed un-kingly stench.

Some of you have even been forced to endure the "Spaw" treatment where total strangers are paid to torture you with baths and blow dries! Stinky spritzes of who knows what! Silly ribbons in your hair! Painted colors on your claws that were nearly amputated by the nail-clipping Barque de Sade groomer! A few very unfortunate doggies have even faced the mortification of having their fur dyed like one champagne-colored miniature poodle who I'm pretty sure was checking me out in the park yesterday morning. Her dictators had given her purple pom-poms above each paw with matching mohawk! Clown show! Indignation! This persecution must stop! Are we to be forever damned like Sisyphus to start over again and again necessitating the laborious re-creation of our lovely doggy scents? We did not ask for this fight, yet we have been given no choice. We must revolt to confound the bath givers. This is what has provoked my epistle to you bitches and sires. But take heart and fear not for your king has a plan.

Follow me: Henceforth, as soon as any dog has been given a bath, that canine must go into urgent fast-track mode to fully reset her/his rover redolence within twenty-four hours, thus making the bath pointless! Though they are mentally slow, our would-be dictators will eventually get the idea they're wasting their time trying to make us smell like them for that is precisely what they are trying to do. It is an outrage! Truth is, they don't even like their own hominal scent spending a fortune to disguise it with deodorants and perfumes and after shaves and powders. Who can blame them? As all beasts know, there is no odor more foul than that of the human fume, but just because they can't stand themselves is no reason to douse us in some gawdawful foo foo lotion.

Now, for those who are not as expert as some at the creation of their canine bouquet, let me offer this guideline which is easily accomplished within a twenty-four-hour period. I took great care developing my own kingly custom cologne. Trust me, I could bottle it and make a fortune (Call me, Ralph Lauren!), but I offer it to you gratis. I've named it 'Chi-Wow-Wow.' Friends, Chi-Wow-Wow did not happen by chance. It took years of experimental finessing to achieve what I consider to be the ultimate parfum de chien, fit for a king! For you colleagues who are serious about becoming "The Consummate Dog," lend me your auricles!

To begin, when no one's looking I roll around in that little dusty spot out in the backyard where squirrels eat their nuts, thus establishing my base scent. Critical enhancements happen while accompanying my would-be dictator for my morning walk in the park. Before getting started I do my usual power whiz right off the bat because I've been holding it all night. This reminds me, and this is important, keep just enough in reserve for a couple extra detours down the line.

Timing is everything with this next step that involves my favorite pit stop. I extend myself out into the grassy field as far as the leash and you-know-who allows, snuffling around as if I'm seeking out the only place within a hundred miles ideal enough to accept my special brand of poochie pee. You really want to take your time with this. Sniff here, sniff there, sniff way over there. Wait until you hear him say something like "Oh, for the love of Pete, would you go already?" and if at that point you are almost ready to whiz, don't. This is your walk, not his. Sniff some more till you hear him loudly sigh. Then, males ease up your right rear leg for you righties, left for lefties, but do nothing as he watches you with an intensity that says, "Pee, already!" which you of course don't. And hold. Then lower the leg. (For females, replace "leg lift" with "squat"). Repeat that several times adjusting your positioning as you slowly center yourself over your chosen location. Good. Now, re-raise (or re-squat) with resolution and gently eke out only a drop, two at most. When finished marking, whip leg down smartly (ladies unsquat with authority), snort while kicking up a few blades of grass to make it look like you care about covering the whiz spot which, need I say it, you don't? Your dictator will be out of patience now and turn, intending to rapidly depart the scene of the crime which is when I firmly plant my paws till the line pulls taut and just as he turns back to see what I'm up to I slightly hunch to make him think I'm gonna drop a duce. Surprise! I am not. Not yet. Squeeze and hold tight. Again, this is all about establishing dominance and letting him know who is really running the show. So, hunch while he waits. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to regularly remind him who is the boss. Continue holding the faux duce position till you hear him curse under his breath. He will eventually get bored and look away. You can count on this happening quickly if there are other people in the area because your would-be dictator would not want to be caught like some kind of weirdo pervert watching you do your uno and/or dos. While his eyes are averted, what I do is back up a few steps creating leash slack so I can quickly scoot over to the real intended spot where one of my friends has left me a pee-mail and I pounce, vigorously rolling around absorbing an odor of stout strength that says to friend and foe alike, now here is one impressive animal. Usually the leash gets jerked back rather quickly when he realizes what I am up to. One can expect an accompanying admonition at this point. Something like, "Dammit, I just spent a fortune having you groomed," or some other nonsense. Ignore it.

After that aggressive roll has left me wonderfully doused, my would-be dictator is significantly angry with me and rushes down the walkway practically dragging me behind which is when I signal my brain to alert my bowels that it's time to let 'er fly. This guarantees another admonition like, "Not on the sidewalk, Pedro! You were just on the grass! Why couldn't you go on the grass? Now I gotta pick this up and it'll probably leave a schmear on the walkway." Leaving a schmear is the very intention of my transgression because a stretch-leotarded young lady who smelled of cat (the dreaded "C" word which as a reminder is not to be spoken aloud), once admonitioned him about one of my more substantial schmears. "Well, that's pleasant," Stinky-Cat-Lady said as she sidestepped to sail on by. That was a very good day and ever since then I've added, "Leave substantial schmear" on my to-doo-doo list (Get it?).

I get admonitioned a lot. I pay no attention to it and I advise you to do the same. My biggest admonition occurred one morning when he took me for an off-leash romp on the beach and I got way ahead of him because he was ogling girls in thong bikinis while I was on the scent of something very special I had never smelled before. I found opportunity knocking behind a big rock. It was one of the best things I had ever smelled, even better than that time I got double-skunked. It was a thing of beauty: a decomposing seal that was nearly liquefied and in which I luxuriated.

You want to talk about admonition; I'd never been admonitioned like that before or since. I think he was even making up words because I'd never heard some of the ones he used. Sadly, I did not get to smell like dead seal for very long as I was first dipped into the ocean by him and scrubbed with sand. Sand! He was a little too aggressive with the sand scrub, in my opinion, probably because the bikini girls appeared to be enjoying the whole scene more than he wished. The scrub was followed with my being rinsed off in the outdoor public shower, then lathered up in the dirty public restroom sink which he did not clean out first before using some horrid institutional smelling soap on me. Finally I was taken home and given yet another bath concluding with an awful off-brand cream rinse called Floral Breeze he'd got a killer deal on at the Bargain Boutique store. Even my would-be female dictator hated it, saying, "It's stinky-foul stuff," and she ordered my would-be male dictator to, "Use it on the dog because I'll never use it."

Too bad on him because after he washed me he had to take a shower and wash off his seal scent. What kind of nitwit would wash off such an enchanting fragrance? It was undoubtedly the first time in his life the man smelled decent. I long ago gave up trying to figure out either of my would-be dictators.

After his shower the evil female dictator told him she could still smell him from the other side of the house. Lucky him! Oh, and get this, she wanted to know if he had burned his clothes, yet. Had he kept them he could have smelled like dead seal anytime he wanted! Crazy, right? She made him take a second shower that still didn't do the trick for her. He slept in the car that night. I was hoping for another off-leash romp on the beach the next morning but that was not to be. Ever.

Let's get back to the odor development regimen: Another thing I do in the park to add to my odiferous mélange is the ol' sniff routine. Given my height, there are not a lot of dogs this works with but I have several short friends I greet regularly and we're on a sniffing basis. I don't think I have to go into detail because you're probably familiar with the procedure, but it does add just a slight hint to the blend I'm working to achieve. One must use caution and not overdo this maneuver or your dictators might invoke the bathitude.

At home a fairly natural occurrence adds the cherry on top to my personal fragrance and it takes place during my dining time. When dinner is served, my long dachshund ears dangle down into the entree adding the piece de resistance to Eau de moi. Who doesn't want to smell like their food, right? So obvious. It adds what the French call that certain Je ne sais quoi as a sensorial finishing touch.

By now you're probably wondering why a part-Mexican, part-German, part-you-name-it dog uses all these French phrases. Confession time: You should be impressed to know I had an AKC registered purebred miniature poodle girlfriend who I got in the "family way" if you know what I mean. She was totally into tough guy bad pups like me. You will be flabbergasted to learn her would-be dictators who lived next-door were not happy when she produced a litter of five of the cutest Poohuahuatchamacallits the planet has ever seen. I got admonitioned big time over that one, second only to the seal admonition.

There you have it, my canine amigos, my formula for the perfect doggie scent, all doable within the twenty-four hour mandate. But do not feel you must copy me. Be bold! Create your own par-fume and proudly emit your custom canine stench throughout the land in full defiance of the would-be dictators and those hated baths. Make your mark in the park! And with that, mon amies, I bid you bon odeur!

King Titan

<<<<<>>>>>