Part 9: Why Poodles and Spas Don’t Mix

One of the top items on the Pagosa Springs “must do” list is soaking in the healing waters of the hot springs. While the sulphuric smell of rotten eggs is a bit of a turnoff, the nose quickly adjusts once the soaking has begun. The Weenies decided to splurge on a spa that offered massages in addition to the springs. Our only problem was a certain small fuzzball who also happened to smell like rotten eggs.

While taking a two week vacation in the Colorado Rockies with your toy poodle may sound like a good idea in theory, I encourage you to think long and hard before doing so. There were very few things we missed along the way due to poodle intolerance—we even managed to slip him into a few restaurants here and there—but sneaking him into a spa seemed a bit optimistic.

After setting up a voice recorder while Bill and I were out one morning, we discovered Dexter had a severe case of separation anxiety (you would have thought we’d left him with Cruella DeVille), so we called the spa to get special permission to bring him along. How naive we were to think he’d just sleep through a 90-minute hot rock massage in his little bag without incident. Apparently the mountain air had given the Weenies a severe case of the stupid.

After boiling ourselves in spring water while the sun burned our winter-white skin, we decided Dexter would join me at my massage since he tends to be a bit on the mom-centric side. I explained to the massage therapist what the deal was, and she was fine with it. About five minutes into the treatment I heard a sound: “Scritch, scritch, scritch! Zip, zip, zip!” The indignant poodle began scratching at the screened opening of the bag to indicate his unhappiness. “Scritch, zip, scritch, zip!” Dexter had managed to partially unzip the bag and stick his head out like a long-necked gopher, which resulted in a first degree burn to my back when the therapist lost control of her hot rocks.

“Scritch, scritch, zip!” Sigh. The tolerant massage therapist suggested we place Dexter’s carrier under the table where I could reach down and slip my hand inside the bag to rub his belly. This worked great for Dexter, but it kind of sucked for me.

When I flipped onto my back, Dexter was left sitting under the table, apparently convinced I had disappeared altogether. “Zip, scritch, zip, scritch!” Now the massage therapist was laughing while I was planning a play date between Dexter and a hungry coyote. We eventually had to take the evil poodle out of his sack and place him on my belly while the therapist worked around him on my arms and legs. He briefly sniffed the massage oils, then plunked his head down and started to snore. That bastard.

So I basically spent $150 plus an extremely generous tip for the most un-relaxing massage ever. Meanwhile, Bill came out of his room looking like a swarthy noodle, having just experienced the best massage of his life. That bastard.

Tune in next time for Part 10 in the Travelin’ Weenie series.

Part 1: Travelin’ Weenies – The Colorado Experiment
Part 2: The Comfort of Crap
Part 3: Weenie in Her Full, Upright and Locked Position
Part 4: And they’re off…
Part 5: Down in the Valley
Part 6: Lost in Condo City
Part 7: Man Does Not Live by Cookies Alone
Part 8: Mountain Mama