Ramblings of A Labradoodle Owner

NOW that I have your attention, you are probably wondering what “Phfffft” means? Well I no longer do. Phfffft means run for cover IF you are lucky enough to hear this sound when it comes from your dog. If you don’t hear a “phfffft” sound, then it is called a ”SBD”: silent but deadly. Still unsure of what I mean? SBD and phfffft means your dog has just farted and usually does this sweet act when company is visiting your household.

Last Thanksgiving my parents and brother were driving almost 6 hours to stay with me for a whole week. I was so excited! They never visited that long before and finally could meet Max, our cute 5 month old Labradoodle. However, Max had been having digestive “issues” with different dog foods which I failed to mention (to my family). At the time, we were trying a new natural dog food that was working well except for one problem: Max was beginning to toot daily now. What did we do? First, we cut out ALL treats and bought Fabreeze to “clear” the air. There was one problem though, Dave and my teenage boys were beginning to rate them! Okay, this may be funny to some but to a woman this was horrible. How could anyone find this funny let alone rate them like it was the Olympics? I really wasn’t finding much humor in my house smelling like a bean factory. 

Solution: find another brand of dog food since I really believed Max once again wasn’t digesting some ingredient properly. Action: forget to buy new dog food and continue cleaning your house for the arrival of company while spraying Fabreeze. 

When I do housecleaning somehow I get sidetracked and what started out as simple straightening up and mopping ends up where I wash every piece of clothing, tablecloth, towels, anything in sight that is worn, sat at or slept on. Oh wait, I just saw dust bunnies, off I go on another tangent—here goes 2 hours of dusting and polishing furniture. Then I sweep and vacuum. For some reason I then think, “Oh now I have to do the bathrooms”, out comes Mr Clean, then Orange Glo for the laminate floors. Somehow running to the pet store to get new dog food gets forgotten. Why? Because after cleaning everything in sight, I realize I have to get started on acorn squash, pies, and whatever else we women feel the need to make the night before Thanksgiving. Thus, my parents and brother are due to arrive any minute and Max is now delivering SBD’s at a more frequent rate and I am furiously spraying every room with Fabreeze while Dave and my teenagers are giggling.

My family arrives and within 10 minutes of being in our house Max is letting one rip every 5 to 10 minutes for the first hour. Each time we would move away, sometimes to the next room, to no avail. YES, Max followed us each and every time.  I would nonchalantly spray the Fabreeze acting like nothing out the ordinary was going on and ask my parents to continue talking. Finally, we could not take it any longer and I sprayed Max with the Fabreeze!  By now everyone was holding their stomach in pain from laughter. This went on for 4 days nonstop. YES Dave and I managed to go to the store and purchase a different brand of dog food. Needless to say during my parents’ visit we used over a half a bottle of Fabreeze in my house. Max was a big hit in more ways than one. The jokes that erupted when Dave and I tried to state that Labradoodles do not have a “doggy” odor, always smelling fresh and clean amongst their other admirable traits, fell on deaf ears. We couldn’t be heard above the sound of laughter coming from my whole family. 

The other good one is when you are watching a movie with 2 teenage boys, a fiancé and our doodle, Max. One night I kept saying, “OK who did it? I want you to stop right now and also leave the room. That is not very nice you know and really bad manners.” So we go through the “Blame Game”, accusing each other to releasing a SBD, with everyone laughing so hard saying, “I didn’t do it”.  Seriously, these were real bad! Tears would come to your eyes, blankets had to be held over heads to find fresh air, and yes laughter erupted spontaneously. What we didn’t realize was that the SBD culprit was laying on the floor by our feet. Okay, I had switched Max onto his new dog food so I figured it wasn’t him—-wrong! Because when we finally were all silent we could hear a little “phfffft” and I start the “Blame Game” again. This went on and off for approximately a half hour. Finally, we look down and hear Max going “phfffft ”. Once again I was on the mad hunt for the Fabreeze as maybe they weren’t that silent this time but they sure were deadly. Eventually, we found the right dog food for Max. The Fabreeze bottle is gathering dust at the moment, thankfully I might add. 

My family and I now find other ways in life to obtain laughter as Max tolerates his food quite well. SBD’s are no longer a daily event from Max. However, every so often I do hear the “phffft” sound. Seems last Christmas, Dave thought it would be funny to buy my teenage boys a fart machine you hide under a chair and activate with a remote control.     

The contents of this blog site are copyright (c) 2007, Annmarie Sparks. All Rights Reserved.