THE HONEY TRAP

It’s midwinter and my daughter Emma is hiding in the hallway wearing nothing but her bathers.

I’m sitting in the living area and George, Emma’s two-year-old white Lab, is laying as close to the fire as he can get. I’m wondering how his ears don’t catch on fire when I hear Emma’s urgent whisper.

“Mum, act normal. Don’t wake George!”

She’s peeping around the doorway, tying her long blonde hair into a messy top knot.

“What the …” I start, but Emma interrupts. She is on a mission, something that happens once a month, something that requires a lot of planning and a bit of bribery.

“Talk like you’re really happy, like nothing’s wrong,” she instructs, waving an arm in a loop. “I need the atmosphere full of good vibes.”

I’m confused. Emma is my eldest, the sensible, steadfast child, not given to fancy flights of imagination.

I look over at George who remains in a heat stupor. He’s been fed and walked and probably has plans to spend the rest of the day right where he is.

“He hasn’t heard a thing,” I whisper back.

Emma has gone to find supplies. She comes back with a robe over top of her bathers, and juggles dog shampoo, several towels and a jar of dog treats. 

“He hates this,” she says. “I’m going to prep the bathroom.”

Her planning is close to something military. The Bath War occurs once a month and I happen to be visiting at the right time to help with the operation.

George was an unexpected gift from her husband Todd. Emma, a nurse, came home from work one day and was not impressed to find a tiny white puppy waiting for her. She already had a cat to manage, a moody ginger tom full of fluff and attitude. 

But George was quick to steal her heart. This gentle soul loves everyone and everything except: the cat, and bath time.

Quietly, I get off the couch to go see what’s happening in the bathroom. Towels cover the floor and Emma throws one at me.

“I suggest you put this around you,” she says.

I take the towel and wrap it loosely around my shoulders. Emma raises her eyebrows.

“You’re going to get very wet.”

I scoff with the parental wisdom that I’ve earned. 

Child, I’ve raised two girls, one of them you, from colicky infant years and toddler taming to teen sassiness, with the hormonal ups and downs only mothers of girls will know. What trouble can this gentle, giant of a dog be?

“You’ve been warned,” Emma says, and with a practised flick of wrist, a blob of honey attaches itself to the shower wall.

“Let’s go,” she says. “Remember, I need the air charged with positivity.”

He’s still blissfully unaware and Emma pulls her robe tighter to hide her bathers because George will know what’s up as soon as he sees Emma in them.

She rattles the jar of dog treats. There’s two things George loves most of all: Emma, and food. His ears prick and his head rouses. He spies Emma, and food, and his tail thumps happily.

In a sing-song voice, which George always falls for, she leads him one treat at a time through the living room, down the hall into the bathroom.

It’s only as Emma shuts us all in the bathroom and takes her robe off, that George realises he’s been duped.

George’s gentle nature, his desire to please and devotion to those who love him, mean that instead of aggression, he turns into a statue.

His way of disobeying is to freeze, drop like a rock and pretends he’s not there. 

George is a big Lab, and even heavier when pretending to be a stone. We dead-weight lift him in to the shower stall and quickly close the door, trapping him and Emma inside. Then it’s my turn to soothe with sing-song talk while Emma does the real work, in tight confines.

“What’s with the honey?” I ask. 

“It’s to distract him. He likes peanut butter better, but let’s face it, he’ll eat anything.”

That’s true, and I see George momentarily distracted from his terror to lick honey off the shower wall.

It’s an irony that he adores swimming in the ocean and river, but loathes baths and showers. We’ve unpacked and re-wrapped this many times. His anxiety is illogical but to her credit, and giving me a sense of what kind of parent she may one day be, Emma doesn’t give in to his whims. He needs a bath and he will get it.

He is quick to recover. Out of the shower stall and three wild shakes later, George is a happy boy and I am a soaked spectator.