My Dawg!

The weather has been unusual this winter. The ground is usually covered in snow, but instead we’ve been getting rain or a limited amount of snow that melts after a day. The result: mud. I live in a house with a dirt yard, so there’s no shortage of mud.

Needless to say, our dog has been getting a lot of baths lately. With work and school keeping me out of the house, this job usually falls to my wife. Tonight, I decided to see what all the fuss was about and take some pictures of the situation.

My first thought when approaching this was that I was an insider. It’s my dog, my house, I should be able to give some insider insights to the event, right? Not true, not true. After taking a later viewing the pictures, it was clear that I was an outsider. I took pictures of what I thought were the most important parts, like the shampooing, towel drying, etc. If my wife (the insider) were taking pictures, she would have included the smaller, but equally important parts, like coaxing the dog into the bathtub. Before she even gave the dog a bath, we took him to the park to wear him out. A tired dog doesn’t fight nearly as hard to get out of the tub.

My wife mentioned something that made me think of the effect outside journalists can have on a community. The last time I gave my dog a bath he was a really young puppy, I doubt he even remembers it. With me there standing by, but not helping with the bath, I guess he thought I was some savior. She said that he was more unruly and whiny in the tub when I was there. This can relate to how journalists can influence a community when they go to document them. People (and I guess dogs) act differently when someone new (or at least a camera) is around.