Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Good Dog Smell

For most of my life I’ve had a dog hanging out somewhere close to me. For the last several years my joy has been a beautiful, loving lab-chow mix named Nala that we adopted from a local animal rescue agency. She’s softly snoring on a blanket near me now. For awhile she accompanied me to my office and slept in the corner while I saw my clients, but I finally stopped bringing her. Even though I think most people in my counseling practice appreciated her calm demeanor (I‘ve always had a suspicion her former owner cried a lot) I had to admit that almost nobody who secretly objected to her presence would be likely to actually tell me so.

The good news is that I can always count on her to greet me with a wagging tail when I come home. Gina says her tail starts wagging (the dog's, not Gina's) when my car is still more than a block away. Sometimes nothing will do for me other than to get on the ground and roll around with her awhile, scratching all her favorite places while we rejoice together over how wonderful it is to be in each other’s lives. It’s probably no surprise that she’s accumulated lots of lovingly elaborate and stupid nicknames by now, like “Nala-Bala-Dala-Wala”, “Dogless Dogaloid”, “You Old Wag-tailed Woofus”, "Dog-o-Mine", “Bees-in-Your-Brain” and that old standby, “Flebus” (flea bus).

The fact is, I just adore her dog smell. I associate the smell of a dog I love with words like comforting, innocent, natural, friendly, present and loyal. To clarify, I’m not talking about wet-dog or what-in-the-world-did-you-roll-in stink; just your normal, can’t-quite-remember-the-last-bath basic dog smell. I bet the truth is that lots of other men feel the same way, but that very few women do. Gina is forever gathering up dog places to wash or air out, and the Febreze bottle regularly makes the rounds of the various doggie hot spots. She denies every having actually “Febrezed” the dog, but Nala always walks very deferentially past the shelf where the bottle sits.

Earlier today Gina was watching QVC (it’s another day, isn’t it?) and “Pink Sugar” perfume was the product of the moment. Apparently it’s one of the hot fragrances in the perfume industry these days. I read a review at amazon.com which said (and this is an actual quote) “When first sprayed, it smells like a donut, almost. Then, later on in the day, it shifts to graham cracker, then to marshmallow.” Finally, a perfume to appeal directly to the Homer Simpson inside every guy! But for my money, why stop there? For those times when a woman wants a loyal, faithful man to curl up around her, scratch her behind the ear and tell her she’s the best girl in the world, nothing could beat the scent of Eau de Dog!

Somehow the perfume industry hasn’t yet caught on to the amazing commercial opportunities inherent in this idea, but it's inevitable that they will and when that happens I'm going to insist on a percentage of the proceeds.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm a woman that appreciates a dog's natural scent . My dog Batman ( mountain cur / pittie mix) has a very pleasant smell of graham crackers on his head