A few weeks ago we were on our way to a day of adventure  when we stopped at the gas station to get some gas and let Happy make a pit stop. When Happy got back into the vehicle I quickly noticed that there was something wrong with one of his front paws. At first I thought that he had gotten a few briars in his paw, but a closer look revealed that while sniffing around in one the mulched areas, Happy had stepped in gum.

Tangled in the hairs of the tender pad of his foot was a thick wad of green gunk. Mixed in with that were large and small chunks of mulch, some of which had the potential to act like splinters.

My heart sank as I looked at the horrid mess. I knew in an instant that our day was ruined, but worse than that was trying to figure out how to safely remove that mess before one of those splinter like shards of mulch injured his paw or he tried to chew the drying gum in an attempt to get it out of his hair and ended up sick.

But as anyone who has had a good shirt or chunk of hair sabotaged by rogue gum knows, even under the best of circumstances removing gum is not easy.  But sitting in the back seat of a moving van with a Happy little pup who had no desire to spend his precious time on the road laying on his back is far from ideal.  Add to it the fact that because we were on the road and we had no tools or brushes to aid the effort, you can imagine the frustration we felt as we pulled over into the nearest parking lot with nothing more than a few baby wipes to try and remove the sticky mess.

Ten minutes of frustration later, with little to show for our efforts we feared that the only thing we could do was find a groomer and hope that they had an open slot. It was at this critical moment that my Mother remembered an article that she had read about removing gum from hair using peanut butter. Worried and with nothing to lose, we headed to the nearest grocery store and brought a jar of peanut butter.

The look on Happy’s face was priceless as we rubbed globs of oily peanut butter into his paw. He must have thought it the weirdest yet tastiest spa treatment it was his odd delight to enjoy. Fortunately even though our trip was ruined, after an hour of careful pulling thanks to the peanut butter we were able to get out all of the gum and mulch.

So the next time an unexpected piece of rogue gum thrown by a careless chewer messes with you or your pup’s hair, pull out a jar of gum. It will take some time and quite a few large sticky globs, but it might save you from having to chop off your locks.