They weren't lady-like tooties. They were almost as loud as the thunder that shook the mini-van. The smell. Oh, my goodness the smell. Five people, two cats and three dogs, one of which had an extreme case of what I call "scaredy tooties" were all trapped in this small van with a smell horrible that was indescribable.

Four of my co-workers form the animal shelter and I were headed home from a three-day seminar on therapy animals. We all had a great time, absorbed new information, and were able to demonstrated how our shelter pets made wonderful therapy animals. Even my Fiona, the one with the horrible flatulence problem.

The windshield wipers tried to keep the road visible, but the rain was falling in buckets - big buckets. Dr. Cofer, the veterinarian and the founder of the shelter, finally used the flashes of lightening to pull to the side of the road. There we all sat, waiting for the storm to pass. Fiona, of course, was in my lap. He insisted that we leave our seatbelts on - just in case another driver had the same idea and didn't see the flashing hazard lights.

Poor Fiona. She couldn't help it. Fiona had been rescued from a puppy mill. She had lived the first four years of her life in an aluminum-siding shack with countless other dogs. It was located in the heart of tornado alley. As you can imagine, the sound of rain, hail and thunder must have been terrifying to all the occupants of that shack. Fiona included. This fear of storms brought on her "scaredy tooties."

At the sight of the first raindrops many miles before, Fiona had started shaking. As the lightening began to flash, she tried to find a way to hide from the storm by burying herself in my lap. It was impossible for Fiona to get away; she was trapped. As were the rest of us.

When the thunder began to boom, I know what was coming. There was no stopping it. Everyone in the car knew Fiona was afraid of storms, they just didn't know how she reacted to them. They were learning and learning quickly.

Fiona's tooties didn't begin softly and then increase to earthquake level. They started at the earthquake level. They would not let up until the storm had passed, passed completely. Once she started, the thunder, lightening and even the rain had to stop before she would be able to regain her usual calm state. This was not her fault. After years of neglect and abuse, this was her only remaining scar from that horrid time in her life. I had made the choice not to medicate her when I first learned about her problem. I thought with training, love and support she would overcome her fear of storms. This was not the case.

"Should we roll down a window?" Maggie asked, her nose and mouth covered with the sleeve of her jacket.

We tried that, but the wind pushed the rain inside the van and we were all soaked in just a few seconds. So, there we all sat. On the side of the road, in the middle of a storm, with a dog booming as loud as the thunder outside. The smell was becoming unbearable, but we had to stand it. There was no where we could go. We couldn't get out of the van. I certainly couldn't put her out in the storm. We all just sat there, nauseated by the smell.

"I should put her in the crate," I suggested.

Everyone insisted that it wasn't that bad and not worth the risk of getting out of the van. We had placed our suitcases and the crates in a manner in which I would have had to have gotten out of the van to put Fiona in her crate. The lightening was too bad to take that chance.

My eyes burned and watered from the stink. If I had been told this story or read it somewhere, I might have laughed. There was no laughing about it as I sat there, praying for the storm to pass. It seemed as if the storm would never end.

"Does she get diarrhea, too?" Another co-worker, Nathan, asked.

I had forgotten about that. There was a time, just after she had been rescued and started living with me, Fiona did loose control of her bowels. Despite her fear of storms, this had not happened in several years. I didn't want to lie, yet I certainly did not want to tell the truth. I pretended not to hear the question and busied myself with trying to calm the frightened dog.

A giant bolt of lightening lit up the night sky. It was followed by the loudest thunder I had ever heard. Fiona jumped from my lap and began trying to run away. She frantically jumped from the backseat to the front seat and then back again. We all tried to grab her, but she was too fast for us. That was when the worst of the worst happened.

Fiona, for the first time in years, lost control of her bowels. As she leaped from lap to lap, clawing at every possible opening to the outside, diarrhea poured from her. She climbed over Dr. Cofer's shoulder and jumped into Maggie's lap. She crawled over her shoulder as well and on the top of the back seat - diarrhea still flying.

One might think it would be easy for five people, trained to catch all sorts of animals, to catch one dog in a mini-van. That was not the case. The van was small, Fiona was fast, and all five of us were still wearing our seatbelts.

By the time I managed to get loose from my seat belt and catch Fiona, the damage was done. We were all covered in the thinnest, runniest dog doo of all times. The smell was atrocious, even more so than the stench of her tooties.

What could we do? No one had packed enough towels to take care of this. Even if we had, it would not have taken care of our diarrhea-drenched clothes. So, we continued to sit there. Now everyone was praying the storm would pass.

I held Fiona in my lap, a firm grip on her collar. She continued to claw me, trying to get away. Of course, she continued to relieve herself all over my lap and chest. I thought about all the I could have done differently. I could have crated her, but that only would have solved half of the problem - the small, smelly half. I could have medicated her, but I had decided against that years before. I could have used her doggie seatbelt. There is an attachment that can be used while you hold your dog, but I didn't own it that time. I stared straight ahead, not looking at anyone. I didn't think I could ever look at those poor people again.