Bathing Benny

As per tradition, Benny was the "happy" recipient of a bath today. There are many reasons for this every other week occurence, namely; the family dog Cooper insists on peeing on the same bush as Benny. Sometimes this happens while Benny is in the act, and I'm pretty sure he gets hit every once and awhile with a few drops. Happy and exciting? I know. Also, Benny thinks it's the greatest thing in the world to just stick his head in the trash can and push it (and its contents) around the house. Not sure how often everyone else checks out the bottom of trash cans, but it's completely unacceptable material to be shoving your face in day after day. So for these reasons, PLUS he sleeps in my bed, Benny gets bathed quite often.
Usually Riley helps me with the process, but he was at the condo prepping it for paint tonight, so I got to do it all by myself. As a bit of background on Benny, he's the nicest, happiest little dog ever. We (well...I) rescued him from the shelter in Salt Lake. He was a hardcore gangster dog roaming the streets of West Valley as a vagabond when he was picked up. That's how I envision it happening. However, I'm sure it went a little more like the dog catcher was perusing the streets and he willingly came up to him to be pet and to receive a treat. I like to think he's a bit more hardcore than that...but...he's not. He's a seven pound spoiled brat.
I really should have taken a picture of him while he was sitting in the bathtub, but it's hard enough using one hand to wash him, and the other to keep him securely in the bathtub to prevent him prematurely jumping out or shaking off. Besides, a picture like that would have been pathetic anyways. He just looks like this dinky little wet rat when he's in the tub.
He doesn't mind sitting in the tub and getting shampooed and conditioned, and he especially loves jumping out into a towel to be dried. But he absolutely HATES getting brushed, and tolerates getting blow dryed. I let him get away without a brushing, but he smells like a wet dog for hours if I don't blow dry him. That process usually involves cornering him and shooting him straight in the face with air. I found myself reasoning with him, which I do all the time, but this time imparticular I really got thinking about what I was doing. I realized I was saying things like "If you don't get blow dryed you won't get to sleep in the bed tonight!", or "Don't bite me or you'll have to sleep in your crate all alone". This got me thinking...are these phrases really meant for the dog? Or am I subconsciously prepping myself for phrases that will be said to Riley in the future? Not word for word exactly, but empty threats nonetheless? We'll see! In the meantime, here are some pictures of our sweet/devil dog.

Trying to get the water out of his ears after his bath tonight

He likes playing with Riley!

What a hard life...