MOTHER NATURE

The trick to raising puppies is to learn their schedules: how long are they awake, how soon will they fall asleep.  How long until after they eat will they fall asleep.  When will they pee, when will they poop.  With these two, they have the exact same rhytms, a complicated choreography of nap/pee/eat/poop rituals of varying time spans.  I've split them up, thinking they took cues from each other, but their bodies really do work within 2 minutes of each other.  As Bruno would say, "amazzzzing."

Yesterday I decided to challenge nature a bit; something a wise man would never do, but I like to live on the edge.  I was at my office had a 30 minute drive home, at which point I would need to drop off the dogs and leave right away.  The dogs needed to eat; it is after this point they run around sniffing for more food, jump on each other, and them poop.  This process that takes approximately 20 minutes.  I thought, if I feed them now and keep them in their carrying case, they'll be calm, they'll fall asleep, and they won't need to go so soon.  I can make it.  So I fed them some food, gathered up my belongings while they ate, and then shoved them in their carrying case, scampered to my car and roared off into the sunset.

I slalomed through traffic, trying not to jostle my canine companions out of their digestively-regressing slumber.  The clock ticked by: five minutes, six, seven.  I hopped in the carpool lane illegally for a bit, skirting an accident that threatened to slow traffic, but made it back to the regular lanes undetected.  And all was well.

But then, at 17 minutes—boink! The puppy's head popped up.

It was the brown one, who generally pooped first.  The while one generally follows in a few minutes; at this point she was still sleeping.  But the brown one...she was awake.  And she began to whimper, and look for a way out.

I noted the mile marker, I had several exits to go, there was no way I was going to make it home.  So I careened across four lanes of traffic and took the next exit, saying "shhhh shhhhh shhhh puppy" and gently rocking her crate, just to keep her startled and hopefully close up her poop chute for just a few short moments.  But the whimpering only got louder.

The puppy then began to claw at the gate of the kennel; I tore around the corner of the exit, spotted a parking lot at the next block, and hit the gas. She was fully whining at this point, sniffing around, looking for someplace to go.  I thought, If I can just pull over, I'll let her poop on the pavement, I don't care.  But as I screeched to a halt at the entrance of the empty lot, the case slid off the seat, and the puppies tumbled over each other to the front...and it literally scared the shit out of the little dog.

Boom.

This of course woke the white dog, who then frantically tried to claw her way out from beneath her sister; but her claws dug into the mess, smushed it into between her toes, and kicked it around the edges of the kennel.

And I just sat there and watched, horrified.  There's not much else to do.

So when all the business was ended, I walked around to the passenger side door and removed the kennel from the front seat to place on the ground.  I wanted to clean them up a little, but I didn't have anything to use other than the towel at the bottom of the kennel; so I folded up the dangerous parts and prepared to use the clean corners to wipe up their messy fur.  But the gate is open!  It's time to run around and play!  So zoom zoom zoom they shot around my feet. I tried to grab the with the clean parts of the towel, but it didn't work very well.  And try to be dignified as I may, this culminated in me standing in an empty parking lot, holding an already-soiled towel and waving it like a matador and shreiking in disgust while the two shit-stained puppies did figure eights around my feet.

I eventually tossed them back in the kennel, I went home, I changed my clothes; the dogs spent the rest of the night in the (empty) bathtub, where they could piss and shit all they wanted and walk around in it.  Which they did.

I was late for my meeting.  But when I finally made it home, I had to change my clothes.

Comments

[Glenn D.]

Oh I am sorry Dan. That sounds horrible. You handled it very well. Sometimes you just can't avoid mother nature. I hope they weren't mad that you were late. Good luck.

[Christian]

This was a funny story, although it wasn't funny while you were going through the "adventure".

[Yoshi]

This all comes full circle. Just yesterday, my 12.5-year-old dog pooped in the car on a 4-hour drive (1.5 hours into it), smeared it into his fur, ate it and then puked it back out once we got home. *sigh*

[justaguynatl]

Oh, did we forget to wish you happy father's day?

[Emily]

Been there. Done that. Not fun. Wish I could have advised you earlier to never mess with the poop schedule.

[johnO]

Nightmare! LOL!

[jay]

Sorry but i'm sitting here laughing my ass off. It was hilarious :)