PISS BRULEE, ANYONE?

The dog has bad breath. And by bad I mean gruesome. 

For example, if you were to rate smells on a scale of one to ten, where one represented good, bacterial vaginosis would be one, and Daisy’s breath would be ten.

“Any chance you can take Daisy to the vet?” I say to my husband. "Her breath is rank.“

The dog has heard us talking about her.  She is wagging her tail. This is because she has no self-esteem. Zero. You could literally say anything: 

Let’s put Daisy on a one-way flight to Korea. 
OR:

Daisy smells like she's been sampling Mike Pence's pump-action yoghurt rifle. 

OR: 

Daisy is a bigger twat than Michael Flatley.

And she would STILL wag her tail. 

My husband takes her to the vet.

“Could you take a look at her teeth?” he says to the veterinary nurse. “My wife thinks her breath smells.”  

“I can’t see anything”, says the nurse, taking a look. “Is your wife, maybe, being a bit neurotic?”

I am a little peeved by this response. Last time I looked at the nurse’s name badge, it said Becky, not fucking Sigmund. My husband, on the contrary, thinks this is the most perceptive thing anybody has EVER said. I’m surprised he doesn’t shag her there and then. Maybe he does.

“Probably!” he says. “Thank you.”

He brings back a bottle of ‘Plaque Off’. As recommended by Becky. The title is worryingly lightweight. I turn the bottle around, hoping to read something along these lines: 

Does your dog smell like she's downed a sewage smoothie? 
Do your worry that your dog's oesophagus leads directly to the realm of the dead? 
Do you regularly consider running away from your home, family and children, just to be free of the gut-churning abomination of your pet's breath? 

If you answered yes to any of these question, sprinkle a fuckload of this on their food.

Instead, the Plaque Off label cautiously recommends one scoop a day for eight weeks.

“I can't take another eight weeks of this nightmare!” I say.  

Daisy wags her tail at my side. She seems euphoric.

Later, I see her trotting into the downstairs toilet. I hear slurping.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shout.

I run in after her.

Daisy has her head in the toilet bowl. She is imbibing piss. Piss with skin on it. Piss brulee. She gives me a look as if to say, “This is delicious. Wanna try some?”

“Bed” I say. “Go to your bed!”

But it’s happy hour at the sewers. It’s drink-all-you-can at the Number One bar. Time has not been called on THIS pee-pee party. 

“Bed” I say, louder now. “Get to your bed!” 

Finally, she lifts her head up, a shudder of pleasure passing through her body into her tail.

I lift the lid of the toilet cistern, fiddle with the flush mechanism. For days now, the flush hasn’t worked properly. The kids aren’t supposed to use the toilet, but they do. I replenish the dog's water bowl. 

I text my husband: Caught Daisy drinking piss. Need to fix the toilet. Explains the breath problem xx 

He texts back immediately: Stop obsessing. You're being neurotic.