On a recent Saturday, we were expecting company in the evening, which meant our afternoon was filled with the requisite cleaning chores. Tidy up the bath room. Clear off the kitchen counters. Vacuum the dog hair.

While putting away the week's worth of clean laundry that had piled up in the bedroom, I caught a whiff of Barrett, whose fear of folding clothes sent her scurrying to the living room. It wasn't a pretty odor.

Living in close contact with two dogs, I've become inured to all but the worst of their scents. When I notice the smell of dirty dog, it means that a house guest will be afraid to enter based on he smell coming from under the front door.

Bathtime with our dogs is always an adventure. Labrador retrievers are supposed to be water-loving dogs, but only Remy really lives up to that reputation. She once nosed open the door while I was in the tub, soaking in a hot bath in an attempt to relieve a leg injury. She sniffed over the lip of the tub, dipping her tongue for a taste. While that was amusing, she ceased being cute when she put a leg up on the edge of the tub as if to climb in with me.

For a dog that loves the water, Remy hates being bathed. In the summer, dog baths take place in a kiddie pool in our yard. Remy gladly hops into the pool, but then tries to escape as soon as she is held in place and assaulted with the hose and shampoo bottle.

Same thing in the bathtub. She climbs right in and laps the water from the faucet, but then makes it clear that she would like to exit on her own terms, not mine.

Barrett is a whole different story. She refuses to swim in water that's over her head, and won't get her belly wet in the pool, even on the hottest summer days. In the bath tub, she's a squirmer on the best days. On Saturday, I decided to try a new approach.

The "master" bedroom of our raised ranch has what real estate agents refer to as a three-quarter bath. I call it a closet with a toilet, sink and shower. However small, the shower stall has the advantage of a full-length door.

I coaxed Barrett into the shower with a handful of biscuits. She was perfectly pleased to chomp on her cookies until the water started pouring down on her. She immediately tensed up and started quivering. It was the sort of reaction you would expect from a dog that had just been pulled from a frozen pond after falling through the ice. The water temperature could not have caused this reaction. It just barely warm enough so as not to be painful to the one of us that doesn't have a thick oily coat for protection.

As I spun her around to get all parts thoroughly wet, she tried to dig her claws into the floor. Now, in addition to the quakes of terror, she was whimpering as if the wet coat were causing her actual physical pain. She refused to accept my offering of another biscuit, instead leaning into the wall as if it would provide a way out.

As sorry as her plaintive wails made me feel, the shower stall was really the perfect place for indoor canine bathing. When we were done, it allowed me to step and and dry myself while she shook the excess water from her coat, decorating the shower with a mural of brown fur.

When I finally released her, it was like wrestling a wild pig. She rolled around inside the towel before leaping to her feet and rubbing herself along the wall and door, leaving a trail of hair 16 inches above the floor molding. I had to wrap her in the towel and carry the wriggling 70-pound mass into the basement to prevent similar decorations down the hallway and into the living room.

The ten-mintue ordeal of course meant another twenty minutes spent re-cleaning the bathroom. Good thing none of our guests needed to take a shower.