If one owns a dog long enough, one will likely face a long list of familiar mini-calamities, such as skunks, porcupines, burrs, insects, fleas, tar- the lot.
Here’s the story of one thing that wasn’t on the list.
Twilight time. About 8:15 p.m. Joe and I decided we’d drive Bryn back to The Commons for another romp through that beautiful place (read last Sunday’s column for details of our previous visit). In less than six minutes we arrived. Bryn was, of course, more than happy to chase a stick we’d brought along, and then wade again in the very shallow brook that cuts through the spectacular Commons area.
We humans hopped back and forth over the water, mimicking Bryn, who loved that her pets were copying her. After about thirty minutes of fun in the lovely evening, we headed back to the car. It was just after 9 p.m.
Then, a peculiar sort of mini-disaster unfolded.
The little stream, about four inches deep everywhere it meandered, had always presented a pristine sand and stone bottom. But. There was one. particular. spot where the stream was channeled to flow under the street, that turned out to be very different.
Bryn hopped down into that six-foot wide space for one more refreshing wade before she had to leave, but failed to notice that this water was opaque. Tar-black. We saw her go in from the corner of our eyes as we chatted, but then---Something wasn’t right! The poor dog had practically disappeared! She was more than chest-high in a viscous black bog! Her front legs were so firmly entrenched she couldn’t lift them to claw her way out. The bog held her firmly. She sank a bit deeper as she struggled.
We wasted seconds staring in disbelief: then Joe and I ran over to help as she tried again to free herself. This time her muzzle dipped into the muck as well, rendering it jet-black. Yuck! She coughed, sneezed and gagged when she tried to lick it off.
Finally, after another mighty effort, she managed to claw her way up the steep embankment and out onto the rich green grass. We stared at our formerly white dog, bewildered. Bryn was black from her chest down. Her muzzle, right up to her eyeballs, was filthy.
My husband scratched his head. “What in the heck just happened??”
Clueless, astonished silence.
He sighed. “Oh well, I’ll just take her a few feet upstream, ditch my shoes and socks and wade in to clean her off.” Bryn trotted into the sandy two-inch deep water and stood there patiently as Joe began, but his strenuous efforts yielded almost no change. Oh, Woe! How could we put her into the car coated with muck! The back seat’s dog cover would never recover!
Scrub, scrub. The black goo refused to yield to sand-scouring. Finally he admitted defeat. It was getting darker; we had to go. So our dog hopped into the back seat as we cringed, trying not to look at the smears. “Hey, I think you managed to lighten her paws slightly,” I chirped, trying to lift the gloom that blanketed us. I got a grunt for my trouble.
We motored home, deciding that what we were dealing with here were many, many fallen leaves mixed in with other vegetation, that had, slowly but steadily over many decades, rotted into this viscous black muck that was tucked into a place nobody would think to wade in. Furthermore, it was an area that rarely saw the sun. An ancient tree’s huge canopy had seen to that.
At home I dragged the garden hose into the alley. Joe ran into the house for Bryn’s shampoo, and then, just before I began to work on her in the gloom of evening, he whipped out his iPhone and snapped a picture. 
Glum Bryn kept looking down at herself. What was all this stuff?!
She was incredibly patient and helpful, raising each leg upon request, and holding off fur-shaking until given permission. The job took nearly thirty minutes. I used her special shampoo brush to scrub away most of the worst of it, and yet- there was still a distinct line of gray to remind us that the goo wouldn’t go that easily. Blackened water pooled on the alley’s asphalt, reminding me of a mismanaged oil change.
By now it was dark, past ten o’clock, long past my bedtime. Mosquitoes were signaling their buddies that fresh blood was right there for for the biting. So we hastily brought her inside after drying each paw at the door. I looked down. A thin gray film dirtied the towel. Bother! I’d have to wipe the kitchen floor that night and scrub her again tomorrow.
Funny how one simple decision – to hop into water that was, in fact, a black hole- could instantly create such a dog-awful mess!