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 By  Staff Reports Published 
5:27 am Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Flower didn't smell all that rosy

By Staff
Scot Beard
This past weekend my wife and I headed to Morgan County to visit with my family and, like usual, we took our dog with us.
Around 10 p.m. Balthazar began acting antsy so we let him outside because we thought he needed to take care of some personal business.
As soon as he stepped onto the porch, he ran into the yard and approached a large, black object. After pouncing on the poor critter, Balthazar jumped back and kept shaking his head back and forth.
That is when we smelled the unmistakable odor of a skunk.
My wife got the dog back onto the porch as I went inside to get a bucket of water to give him a quick bath to try and get rid of as much stench as possible.
Unfortunately my dog is a Great Dane, so there was a lot of musk covering a lot of dog.
While I was filling the bucket with water, Balthazar began growling and my wife thought the skunk might be coming back into the yard.
She grabbed the dog's collar to keep him from running off the porch, but soon realized it was not the skunk – this time a deer decided to run through the yard.
I laughed when she told me this and said we were only a rabbit short of seeing the entire cast of "Bambi."
While Thumper never showed, seeing Flower and Bambi definitely made for a memorable evening.
As we were bathing the dog – he hates baths and washing him is always an adventure – I began to think of other characters from Disney cartoons and what it would have been like if they had shown up.
I thought about the Crows from "Dumbo."
They would have made the situation worse by running their mouths while we were trying to wash the dog. That would have annoyed me.
They might not have seen an elephant fly, but they definitely would have seen some crows die.
Next I thought about Robin Hood coming by. Maybe he stole some money from the fat-cat bankers that have driven the economy into the ground.
While my checking account is not interest bearing, maybe that sly fox could come bearing a few hundred dollars.
Better yet, Genie from "Aladdin" could have come by. I would have asked for three simple things.
First, I would have the skunk smell taken off my dog. Then, I would have my mortgage and student loans paid off.
Finally, I would do something to benefit all of mankind. I would have Flower, and all of his family, to go through musk gland removal surgery.
Now that is a Disney ending I can enjoy.

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