Even the Brave Have Bathtubs From E.J. Donovan
Nothing like a 70 pound dog hiding in the bathtub...
Diana — is the smaller of my two German Shepherds, though “small” is relative when you weigh seventy pounds and think you’re invincible.
This scene became one of my favorites to write, because it captures that moment between chaos and surrender — the part where even the fiercest of us need somewhere safe to hide.
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Chapter 75: Diana in the Bathtub
Diana is a 70-pound German Shepherd who believes she is bulletproof. She’ll launch herself at a six-foot fence if she thinks there’s a squirrel conspiracy. She doesn’t care if Ariel, the older dog, bites her in the face — she keeps coming back for more. If you swat her butt mid-chaos, she spins around and tries to bite you back, like how dare you, mortal.
Diana is insanely dog-aggressive. We took her to a different trainer after the Carlos experience to see if we could train it out of her. We gave up. They asked us to try and determine the distance away the other dog had to be to set her off. The answer is the horizon. If she sees it, she starts barking, lunging, hackles up and definitely not listening to me or the suggested clicker. Completely loses her shit.
She is joy and defiance, and chaos incarnate.
Until thunder.
Then she vanishes. You’ll find her wedged in the bathtub, eyes wild, body trembling, as if the world is ending and she’s the only one who got the memo. She doesn't bark, doesn’t growl, doesn’t even flinch when you call her name. She’s gone, someplace internal, the way some animals go still before a storm hits. She almost pees herself. Sometimes she does.
And every time, I want to say, “Oh baby, I know.” Because I do.
I know what it’s like to be brave until the sky changes. To be full of teeth and fire, and then suddenly not. I know how it feels to fight the whole world and still need a place to hide when the pressure shifts. To flinch from things no one else can hear yet.
I was Diana in the bathtub. And sometimes, I still am.
Sometimes all you can do is crawl into the nearest tub and wait it out.
But when the sky clears?
Diana comes flying out like nothing ever happened. God, I love her for that.
Wow what a description of the dog’s personality, you should definitely write more, even though dogs aren’t my favourite animal as I was bullied as a child by a sadist who launched his German shepherd at me deliberately while pretending to be my friend. But that’s another story, you should write about anything, not just dogs. Also about your grief, if it helps. Or about love, which underlies both the relationship with dogs and with the humans we lose along the way. Just write.
Dogs can be rock solid in one environment and completely unravel in another. You captured that really well with Diana. My dog in my profile picture, Oxy, after we returned from a deployment started doing the same thing during storms. I enjoyed reading this and look forward to more. Thank you for sharing.