DOG WASH HOGWASH

A new pet shop opened last Saturday not a brisk five-minute stroll from our caravan, and yesterday I set about discovering the services it offers, in particular its pet cleaning set up. I was greeted by a harassed receptionist who looked to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, despite my being the only customer in the vicinity at the time.

“Do I have to book to have my dog washed?” I enquired, noticing by the monogram on his white coat that he was, in fact, the veterinary surgeon in chief.

“Er, yeah. It’s probably best…” he mumbled. “I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by demand,” he bleated defensively, out of nowhere, “we only opened on Saturday.”

“How much does it cost for a large mongrel?” I asked him. He consulted his price list.

“Without a Breed Defined (Jumbo)... thirty-five reais,” he responded. He opened his diary on tomorrow. The page was largely blank.

“We’ve got two booked tomorrow…” he said, his voice trailing off helplessly.

“Right…” I looked at him. He seemed lost for words.

“I’ll call you tomorrow then,” I suggested, unable to bear the tortured silence any longer.

“Yeah, call us tomorrow and we’ll see if we can fit you in,” he retorted efficiently, grateful for my forbearing.

Buggering that, when I got home I grabbed some coconut soap and stood on Moby’s lead whilst I hosed him down in the back yard. I was never going to fork out R$ 35 to clean an animal that, before you could say “Jack Russell” would be lying in his own effluent, or that of an unidentified third party – he’s a handsome beast, but his personal hygiene is nothing to write ballads about.

As I cleansed my mutt, I began to do some mental arithmetic. R$ 35 per dog – let’s suppose there are two pet hygienists working, one washing and the other drying. I reckon you could bathe at least three large mongrels an hour, maybe more smaller hounds, especially as the most popular breed around here appears to be, inexplicably, the Poodle. So that’s roughly R$ 105 per hour. As an EFL teacher, the most I’ve ever managed to earn per hour in Brazil is R$ 25. As far as I can guess, pet hygienists don’t need any particular qualifications – in fact they could be utterly witless and still make a career out of it, as long as they knew which way round to wear the apron and remembered to keep the dog’s head above the waterline at all times. Even if the two of them shared the R$ 105 per hour equally, they’d still be creaming off double what I receive – and they wouldn’t have people gazing resentfully at them all day with a look that says, “I still can’t speak English, and it’s nobody’s fault but yours.”

When I did my TEFL course, I recall that one of the teacher trainers made the observation: “If you’re entering TEFL to make money, there’s the door.” I now realize that he wasn’t indicating that it was the door to making money, but the door to get out of TEFL before it was too late.

Damn him and his confounded ambiguity!

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