Yesterday, Miles decided to entertain our house guest. I'm referring to my friend's puppy Sheilagh, as mentioned earlier. She thinks he's wonderful, and I think she regards him as her big brother.

His method of entertainment involved wrestling with her - despite her recent eye surgery and her wearing a big funnel collar to stop her scratching her repaired eye. She seemed to love it, and both came in caked in mud (snow a few days ago, melted over a warm weekend of sunshine, making the ground good and wet).

And lo it was that Miles, who normally never needs bathing (he swims so much he normally keeps himself clean), had to have a bath.

He took it like a trouper (rather than a trooper), and only made three attempts to climb out. That hardest bit was getting all 90lbs of him into the bath in the first place. Much has he loves swimming, I don't think he could see anything worth retrieving (ours is a rubber ducky-free household), and so he wasn't keen on getting in.

I shampooed him with J&J Baby Shampoo (and later found the Dog shampoo "tidied away"). He stood there, resigned to it, trying to maintain a stiff upper lip - even though he's an American Golden Retriever - clearly having picked a lot up from me, and can even explain Cricket to the other dogs at the park. Well, that's what he tells me.

I tried to make light of it with him, to put him at ease. You know, the usual Monty Python barbershop sketch smalltalk.

Me: "The usual then sir?"
Miles: ...
Me: "Perhaps a little off the back?"
Miles: ...
Me: "Rangers played well last week, didn't they sir?"
Miles: ...
Me: "Do you need...err... 'a little something for the weekend' sir? If you know what I mean."
Miles: ...

All in all, he did very well. He even waited patiently whilst I got the bulk of the water off him with a towel, before showing me how it's really done (violent shaking along the z-axis).

At the end of it, after a darn good brushing, he looked as handsome as ever, plus he was silky soft. This, of course, didn't do his street cred any good, but didn't care, because he knew he looked fabulous!