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CAN’T TEACH OLD
DOGS NEW POOPS |
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WARNING: If reading about dog
poop is not your cup of tea (bad analogy, but it should scare the weenies
away) then STOP HERE!! If you can handle animal bowel movements,
read on.
Our little black pug, Lucy,
is now 15 years old. She can’t hear anything, she is practically blind,
and her arthritis has reached the point where she no longer will go down a
step. But she still loves food, and she can poop like a six-month old
puppy.
I was thinking about this
because, well, I think about it every day. Especially in the morning, when
I walk into the kitchen, where Lucy sleeps, and pretend I’m in the
Marines and have been assigned to the minesweeper patrol. So far, I’ve
only been blown up twice.
It wasn’t always this
way. Lucy never pooped in the house. She could hold it with the best of
us, and patiently waited until she was outdoors on the grass. But now she’s
old, and could care less. Scolding her just falls on deaf ears.
Fortunately, Lucy’s
transgressions are strictly limited to poop. She has yet to learn that the
excuses of old age will allow her to pee freely in the house without
serious retribution. There is no doubt that she will figure it out soon.
Naturally, this creates some
tension around our household. In fact, it’s pretty much all we talk
about.
Yes, that’s sad, but it’s
also exciting. On those mornings when Lucy has not made a deposit on the
kitchen floor before we arrive, there is great joy. And then when one of
us carries her to the side yard and comes back holding a poop bag, there
is great satisfaction.
Sometimes we even go outside
together. And when we watch her do her poop dance, where she circles a few
times trying to find just the right spot, our anticipation is boundless.
Then when she finally settles in and lets it drop, we put our arms around
each other and squeal with delight.
It always reminds me of my
mother, who loves to tell the story of me as an infant, when I had the
runs for six months straight. Finally, just before the holidays, my mother
ran into the room and showed my father an open diaper with a solid poop.
"This," she said, tears
in her eyes, "is the best Christmas present I’ve ever had."
That’s how we feel now when
Lucy does her business outside. The biggest problem, though, is that even
if we have a successful morning, the day is long. And Lucy’s afternoon
poops are less predictable.
This is where the real tension
sets in. "She hasn’t gone yet," my wife will announce to me as
I walk in the door most evenings. "Can you take her out?"
So I carry her to the side yard
and set her down, where she stands motionless and stares into space,
wondering why she’s out there for the sixth time that day.
To appease me, she squats and
does a very short pee. But she has no intention of pooping.
"She peed, but no poop," I
announce as I carry her back in, wondering what happened to the
intellectual discussions we once had. "You can take her out next
time."
And she does, right before bed.
When she walks back in, I can see the distress. Not Lucy’s, my wife’s.
"Nothing," she mourns. "I can’t believe it."
It’s going to be a long,
restless night. We go to bed, but we know Lucy can’t hold it until
morning. We could get up at 3 a.m. and take her out, but that’s not
going to happen. We’d rather walk the minefield in the morning.
"I told you the dark
stain on the hardwood floors was a mistake when you chose it," I said
as I drifted off to a tortured sleep. "If we had light floors, like I
wanted, at least the poop would stand out and we could see it before we
stepped in it."
"And I told you to stop
walking around barefoot," she replied.
We could hear Lucy snoring all
the way from the kitchen. Somehow I pictured her smiling in her sleep.
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