Rolling in dead things

[Sue and Cash]

Cash might not have any hair left for us to judge how his neutering went!

He has been doing this rolling in nastiness since I got him.  I know it is a dog thing.  But you can't bath a dog everyday.  Even every week is too much for his coat since he is dry.  I was used to Dublin's shiny glossy coat and Cash has fly away, crazy wooly monster dry hair since he was a new pup.  So less bathing works better for him.  Only he doesn't get that!  I should of kept a list of all his nasty rolls because it is a long one.  He can't resist another dogs diarreah or vomit.  Our dog park fields are filled with frogs lately due to a very wet spring/summer season.  They are dead often and he loves to wait in line behind other dogs to roll about in them.  Dead birds are a favorite as well.... and he likes to bring those along to show me too.  My choice is to not let him run the field of course which isn't a good option since that is why he has such a great life.  Do they make a conditioner type spray that you leave on their coats to help dogs that are overbathed due to their stupid behavior?  Do they ever outgrow the love of nastiness?  I try to keep him right by me and usually I do, but if he ever darts out of sight I know what is going on.  He did it again today and I was eaten alive by mosquitos getting that rolling fool out of the mess.  Anyone else have a dog that loves to roll on gross stuff?  Every dog I have had has done this sort of thing.  If I can catch him sniffing it I can stop him with a firm LEAVE IT command but I have to see him first.  They can be sly about it and sneak behind a tree.

 

p.s.  No laughing allowed and no gloating if your dog is so well behaved it won't ever do that!!!!!!

[Margaret Sierakowski]

It's a setter thing, not much you can do about it!
Be thankful you dont live near the coast in northerly latitudes where they can roll on dead seals or dead whales! It can take three weeks of daily bathing to get rid of the smell of putrid seal! And the horror of having to drive home with a dog in the back of the car with bits of oily dead seal or whale clinging to its coat!
The worst thing that my dogs roll in is well rotted dead salmon in the winter when the salmon die off and the dead ones get washed up on the river banks. Dead sheep and deer carcases are next in order of preference. Also fox poo.
And for some reason, dead moles smell pretty bad. Anything that feeds on fishy things like herons and ducks are to be avoided too

[Louise Perry]

oh no how disgusting!!! Reuben doesnt tend to roll so much but more of jumping in the most digusting smelliest ponds, lakes etc. He has just had the hosepipe treatment as he caught me out earlier and ran in to a house in the woods and obviously found a pond at the back of it! I hope he didnt harm anything and he has been so good at being distracted pass the house lately that he caught me off guard. hence a frog march home again !

[Elizabeth Ball]

My problem is slightly different - Bella doesn't roll in it.... she eats it. Cow Poo, Horse Poo, Deer Poo, Bird Poo, Rabbit Poo (by the bucket load, it is all over our land and she sees it as some sort of caviar like treat trail), tufts of rabbit fur (killed overnight in our field in case you were thinking I had a rabbit fur coat she had taken a shine to), stagnant puddles, boggy mud from the edge of the reservoir..... and now her current favourite is late night frogs that we seem to have in abundance in the garden.

Yum, Yum, Jippy Tum.

I try my bestest to beat her to it with a leave it, heel etc but sadly I don't have eyes in the back of my head and sure enough gobble, gobble down it goes before I even knew it was there. On occassion we therefore have to deal with Bella's stinky diarrhea that makes me heave (I'm not great with smells) and have her on a bland diet of rice and either fish or turkey - does anyone have any other recommendations for getting the system back on track when it has been put out of kilter?

I have only recently started using Plush Puppy products and I really like them - they do a number of leave-in conditioners/moisturisers/oils - but I haven't yet tried them so I can't recommend a particular one - but it might be worth a look.

Wow though, dead seals, and rotten swan eggs, who am I to complain?

[danielle rowles]

Touch wood I feel so lucky, I only have 1 that really likes to roll and she mainly enjoys horse poo and dead fish, she loves rolling in mud in the winter but I can cope with that!!! 4 wet dogs in the car always stinks, no matter how good or bad the water!!

I agree, Plush Puppy do some great products, the shine and comb is really good. I also must admit to using a) groomers evening primrose oil coat spray, love this stuff and it smells good, I have lovely shiny coats from it and I also but the feed supplement of it, I also use a horse product on mine, I need to find the bottle but I think its by Carr Day and Martin and its a mane and tail shine one (i think) but this makes their coats really soft, I find myself doing my own version on the head and sholders ad where the water guy can't stop feeling the girls hair in the hairdressers!!! lol. I only need to use the horse product about once a week, but be warned, do not use it on laminate floors, tiles or vynil flooring as boy do you end up on your bum quick!!!!
Also I like to change shampoo and conditioner every so often, I do this with my own hair and it always feels great when I change, but after a while of using the same product it doesn't feel so good, I guess this is because of the build up of one product on the hair, and I find this the same with my dogs!

[Ossian]

Hold on to your lunch!!!!!!
This will make you realise that you have NOTHING to worry about!!

I am very lucky that I have a huge compound where I can exercise my setters. They can run and play and we also have a rough area which is good for training.. A good few weeks ago Norna and I were mastering the art of retrieve and she was doing well.

Across from the parking area at the compound is often where some of the big lorries overnight and we have complained about them leaving "dinner" carrier bags etc behind when they move out. However one evening a few weeks ago we were finished and coming back to the van when Norna made a break for it and headed off into the rough ground on the other side of the road. I just whistled as I thought she would be straight back. not a bit of it she was obviously rolling in something. I ran towards her and she took off so I stopped and called her and right enough she wheeled round and I encouraged her back. However, given that we had been practising retrieve she thought it would be nice to bring me what she had been rolling in.

Given that there are no facilities where the lorries stop I could hazard a guess what she had been rolling in andI could confirm what it was way before she disentangled herself from the grass and headed toward me proudly carrying a blue plastic carrier bag.
Now - good trainer that I am - I am thinking she is coming straight in, perfect retrieve, I am no way going to shout at her!!! Frantic search in my pocket for a poo bag to put on my hand and then "to hand to hand"

So by the time I had dealt with that and bathed the dog, I wasnt fit to have anything to eat! Dont talk to me about rolling in stuff!!

[Margaret Sierakowski]

Must be in the genes., her mother Polly is a great one for rolling in anything that stinks to high heaven

[Sue and Cash]

Okay then I am not alone!!!

I didn't even bother to bathe him again yesterday. A washcloth was all I could do and he still smells funky. I figured he will only roll again today so why bother! I swear he is most likely to do it the day after we give him a bath. I don't think he likes to smell pretty. I know he doesn't. The worst was two summers ago when Dublin rolled in a fresh batch of dog poo that someone didn't clean up, my pet peeve and something our park will fine you for if you caught. He had it all over him from his eyes to his the tip of his tail. It was 90 degrees outside, and I had a loaner car from the car dealer because mine was in for maintenance. The smell was horrid and I had no towels with me. I had to just pour water on him over and over and let him air dry with it stuck in his coat. I then drove to the Petmart groomers, who I never used before, and begged them to take him that moment, bumping other dogs waiting mind you. They sympathised with me and did indeed take him right in. He was so bad I couldn't even imagine bathing him in our bathtub! I was charged 65.00 for a bath!!! But it was worth it because he was in such a state.

[Ilona & Gina]

What a good laugh!
Gina and Anton once rolled in some rancid fish and chips oil that someone had tipped out on the grass (I wonder who comes up with such a stupid idea).

They stank like fried battered fish. Yuk! And you should have seen their coats! The car ride home was a nightmare. We chucked them in the boot (can you imagine how the car stank after the ride?). I almost threw up on the way home. It took us three or four loads of soap and conditioner to get off the oil. This was half a year ago, and the doggy towells still smell of fishy oil.

Urrgh - it's not just a setter thing. It's a dog thing, and they'll love it all their lives, sorry to say. What would your life be without all that trouble :))