CHAPTER 1 That Totally Stinks I’m Alfie Wolfe and there’s one thing I hate baths Almost every night my mom says For Pete’s sake Alfie please go take a bath Wash those stinky feet with soap before I faint from the smell Problem is Mom always says it right when I’m doing really important stuff Stuff like handing out bedtime treats to the dogs in our dog hotel Most of the time I avoid the bathtub without Mom noticing
But this story isn’t about my stinky feet Well not totally It’s about a stinky dog named Stanley A Labrador retriever to be exact A yellow Lab to be exacter Stanley loved to roll in dead stuff like fish The deader the better In my opinion that wasn’t a problem But this was When he stayed at Hound Hotel his owner Ms Snoot wouldn’t let him play outside All dogs should play outside It totally stank I never felt sorrier for a dog Stanley showed up at Hound Hotel one morning last month It was the peak of summer and super hot Before Stanley arrived my twin sister Alfreeda and I were sitting on the kitchen floor eating our cereal That’s totally normal at our house See our mom was writing another book about dogs
As usual the kitchen table and chairs were covered with her writing stuff She sat at the table and typed on her computer Alfreeda and I wolfed our cereal out of dog bowls Don’t worry we did use spoons That’s normal at our house too All the regular bowls were dirty and piled in the sink We own more dog bowls than regular bowls Why Because there’s really only one part of the store our mom likes to shop in the dog department Alfreeda read a Hound Hotel new-visitor form while she ate I read over her shoulder It was information about Stanley written by his owner Ms Snoot My dearest Hound Hotel workers Like a true Labrador retriever my sweet boy Stanley loves to play catch with sticks balls and Frisbees Also like a true Lab he runs very fast It gives him great joy to
tear around outside He would stay outdoors all day long if I allowed it But I don’t allow it now that it’s August He gets much too hot dirty and sweaty I simply cannot stand a stinky dog Therefore I expect you to keep Stanley inside his pen while I’m gone He may go outside for short bathroom breaks but no running around I expect my dear Stanley to smell as sweet as a rose when I return from my overnight trip Thank you Sniffingly yours Ms Snoot Alfreeda finished reading and said What Stanley can’t play outside at all He’ll be bored out of his mind I cried That totally stinks Hmm Mom said Alfie did you say something stinks
