After indulging in her new favourite pastime, Yorkshire Vet, Julian Norton has a smelly Emmy to deal with

“Can you get the baby bath from the garage and fill it with warm, soapy water. The dog’s just found fox poo and she’s covered.”

The message wasn’t in capitals, but it may as well have been. A text message, or worse an email, spelt out in capitals is always a bad thing – somehow it conveys the seriousness of a situation even more than shouting.

I readied the required equipment. The baby bath, which I found in the garage, had a crack in it but, nevertheless, I filled it to the brim with warm water that was VERY soapy.

An anxious Anne and a smelly, but rather pleased with herself Emmy emerged from the car, both at high speed – Emmy rushing to greet me, proudly showing off her new aroma and her delightful new shade of greenish-brown, Anne sprinting to get hold of her before she jumped on me or burst into the kitchen, where her new perfume would be spread around the inside of the otherwise spotless and neutral-smelling house.

Why do dogs do this?

It must be something to do with territories – or maybe an attempt at a disguise.

Eventually, Emmy was Persil-white and bouffant after her garden bath and considerably less smelly, so it was not the end of the world that it might have been. It reminded me of a time, a couple of years ago on the long, straight beach of Sandsend, when a Golden Retriever performed a similar trick with the beached carcass of a decomposing porpoise.

The scene was so disgusting that it should not be described in much detail, for fear of frightening readers and putting people off their breakfast.

The dog’s owners spotted the potential problem in advance and secured the retriever safely on his lead, much to his annoyance. But the dog had already sniffed the air and sensed the fun that could be had with a decomposing animal, its smell much worse than fox faeces. After having past the porpoise and reached, what the owners perceived to be, a safe and sensible distance, they let the golden retriever off his lead again, only to watch in horror as he turned tail and charged back to plunge to himself into the rotting mess for his best ever roll. In unison, all the watching dog walkers on the beach reeled in repugnance (but also relief that it wasn’t their dog).

There is a corollary to dead porpoises and fox poo stories – another odiferous danger, of which I’ve just become aware. This comes in the form of hedgehog faeces.

We’ve had a family of hedgehogs living in our garden, munching on slugs and worms. We have enjoyed watching them stomp round the garden on their evening rounds. It turns out, however, that hedgehog poo is just as appealing as fox poo to a dog who is intent on disguising herself.

Emmy can find the poo in all corners of the garden. She assumes a pose very similar to the ‘downward dog’ that yoga enthusiasts adopt and places the top of her head firmly on top of the slimline poo. It happens to be the part of her head that you’d pat. Next, she rubs vigorously, embedding the smell into the skin as well as her hair. Then, she trots into the kitchen!

Normally, Emmy’s behaviour and endearing charm are beyond reproach, but her persistent and recent habit of poo-rolling is becoming rather annoying. Luckily, the hedgehogs are now hibernating!

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