“Watch out! Dog shaking here!” The cry whipped my attention at the exact moment the previously dripping dog deposited all his water droplets flying through the air. And all over me.

There are few happier places to spend a Sunday afternoon freelance assignment than with a bunch of dogs getting baths.

Happy for me anyway. Several of the dogs in question were less than thrilled to be plopped in a bright blue kiddie pool, sprayed up one side and down the other, then soaped, rinsed, toweled, and donned with a bright green bandana. Abby, for instance, the two-year-old Golden Retriever above, was skittish to say the least about this whole endeavor. Don’t let her relative calm in this photo fool you. Seconds after the shutter released, she channeled her inner Steve McQueen and attempted a Great Escape of her own. (The enthusiastic volunteer bathers, who at this point were almost as soaked as the dogs, would have none of it.)

Could this fellow have a more disconsolate look on his face?

I am proud to report that I neither tumbled into a kiddie pool, nor became entangled in a dog leash, nor misdirected my camera into the stream of a rogue hose.

Direct hit from a water-shaking dog however? I wasn’t so fortunate to avoid that fate.