Oh, Poop

Going to be late posting comments today.

The dogs broke the screen door yesterday, so last evening after a long dog walk I set out to the local hardware megastore to be frustrated/disappointed as usual. Returned home after an hour to find the puppy had pooped in his crate, and gotten it all over himself and over a wide radius of the kitchen.

Now, I am a poor housekeeper, but I do draw the line at shit slathered all over everywhere (you will be relieved to know). EVERYTHING had to be cleaned, scrubbed, hosed down, mopped, sprayed, disinfected—ending with Mr. Butters himself in the bathtub, and finally with our clothes in the wash and showers for the humans.

This took hours.

Then, in the middle of the night, the puppy was up because he had to poop again. (Outside this time.) I, of course, could not get back to sleep for an hour and a half. The dogs, for their part, wanted to get up at the same time as always.

I now have 21 minutes to get dressed and get the puppy to the vet. Ask me if I am totally relaxed about transporting a 46-lbs. puppy in obvious gastrointestinal distress in my car.

Anyway, long story short (unless it's already too late for that): it's going to take me a while to catch up with posting the comments from yesterday. Management apologizes for the unavoidable delay. There are many good comments, though, so it's going to be very interesting—worth checking back.

On the plus side, the screen door is neatly repaired, and works again.

L8r,

Mike
(Thanks to Xander for helping clean up)

UPDATE, 4 p.m. Tuesday: All the comments to the "How You Doin'?" post are now posted. Sorry again for the delay. I think these comments are particularly fascinating, so I urge you to check them out, although I wouldn't draw any broad conclusions about the photography business from them.

Now to put up today's post—also late—before dog obedience class starts tonight!

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Fiddlergene: "Ah, the tribulations of being owned by a dog...."

Tony Collins: "Poop happens."

Michael Perini: "Yo Mike, Just FYI:

• All Puppies Poop.
• They Poop in more than direct proportion to their size.
• They Poop more than you feed them
• They Poop in Inverse proportion to convenience of your schedule.
• They usually save some for just after you've cleaned them up.
• Puppy Poop is a universal attractant, and like spooky action at a distance can travel faster than the speed of light and attach itself to stuff that wasn't even near it. (Stephen Hawking is working on this—send him some.) [It's actually a subset called Smelly action at a distance.] I would have told you this sooner, but I assumed Ctein had told you, as all physicists know this. You should take that up with him at his annual review.
• No one feels sorry for you for bringing more poop into your life. But we do admire your kindness...from afar.

"There is a lesson here that life is trying to teach you: Whether people, pets, careers, vocations or avocations, everything in life that brings us joy and a sense of accomplishment, comes with a little poop attached. The sooner we get it out of the way, the more we can enjoy the good parts ;-) ."

Dennis: "OK, pool, coffee, tea, cameras all fine. Doggie G.I. issues is a bridge too far for me."

Mike replies: Amen brother. You and me both, you and me both.

Robert P: "NIce variation on 'The dog ate my homework.'"

Mike replies: You're not going to believe this, but when I was in grade school, the dog really did eat my homework once. Hand to God, honest truth.

I didn't even bother trying to tell the teacher.

Comments

[Robert Newcomb]

Ah, poop happens...
Two trains of thought on feeding dogs. 1) "freefeeding" let the bowl of food stay down for them to eat any time they care to. 2) Put the food down at nearly the same time each day, usually morning and evening. let it stay down for a short given time and then take it up. If they're hungry they will eat it during that time.

By regulation input you regulate outppoop. Always take a dog outside a shortly after they eat, before bed, when they first wakeup and any other time to can manage.
Don't suddenly change what they eat and stick to dogfood - no human food, at least at first.

[Rogerbotting]

Bypass the whole poop and scoop process, duck tape a plastic bag to the dogs nether regions and then attach the cone of shame.
That way it won't be able to chew the bag off
You could even create a bag harness to hold the bag, much like a woman's hosiery hanger from the forties.. Hey, a business idea for you.
Maybe you will become rich and famous for the selling the TOP Doggie Poop Catcher.

[stephen]

Ah, memories. Ever carried a very old, infirm 70 lb. dog down snow-covered wooden steps in the middle of the night 'cause it's "that time"? Now that's livin!

[Gary]

Stories like that make me grateful my wife insisted on chihuahuas, cleaner than cats and poops like Maltesers (for US readers that'd be Hershey Whoppers).

[Andre]

You've just reminded me as to why I don't own a dog. Caring for my son's dog two weeks a year is enough for me.

[Rowan]

Back when I was a teenager, my father rescued a dog that had obviously been tied to a stake in middle of nowhere to die - he was skeletal, desperate and obviously nearly dead. We brought him home, fed him about three cans of dog food, gave him lots to drink, and then went to bed. When I came downstairs the next morning, the dog had managed to poop all over the floor, and done exactly the same as your pooch - kicked it all over everything, including the ceiling. We dare not think about the places it went that we never found...

[John Krumm]

Now that doesn't sound like a time to whip out the camera to capture a memory. I'm sure it will be burned into your brain. I'd share my similar story but perhaps you don't want this to turn out to be the crappiest post in TOP history.

[Shaun]

The answer is a three letter word that begins with C.

[donald barnat]

You call yourself a photographer? Where are the pictures? No, never mind. I hate dog shit anyway. Now monkey shit? That I can get behind. Woo hoo! Good coffee.

[Mandeno Moments]

I can empathise. I once was left looking after a kitten for a long weekend: it had intestinal irregularities and they smelled so bad that the UN was knocking on the door, accusing me of stockpiling biological weapons of mass destruction.

[Justin Ting]

Mike, obviously too late for today, but we've found this useful as a general leave-in-the-trunk item: http://www.duluthtrading.com/store/product/seat-protector-scouts-seat-saver-32006.aspx?kw=dog%20seat%20cover&processor=content

(Not affiliated; just a customer.)

[Macjim]

Sounds like you had a shitty day then... Know the feeling

[Christopher Crawford]

Dogs are nasty animals. Something I'll never forget: Several years ago, my son and I visited my parents one day. They had a huge Great Pyrenees dog and a 23lb fat orange cat. We walked into their house, and I see the dog laying on the kitchen floor with a sad 'dog being scolded' look on her face. My mother is standing over her yelling: "BAD DOG! BAD DOG! Stop eating CAT S--T!"

The dog LOVED eating the cat's poop and would go to great lengths to get to the cat's litter box, which was kept in a place that the dog couldn't fit into, in order to discourage her 'foraging'. Disgusting. I've known lots of other people with dogs that ate poop all the time. Nasty, nasty, nasty!

Cats rule, dogs drool and eat poop!

[John Holmes]

Music, then pool, now dog poop? You are going to lose photographers.

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

Reminds me of the time my grandmother's Cocker Spaniel got shut in the library/office for the night and somehow discovered the large stash of M&M candies, ate them all and explosively shit the whole mess plus some exponential quantity of whatever was inside the dog to start with all over the entire room and white carpet. A favorite story of the family's now many years after both have passed.

[Dennis]

Ok, pool, coffee, tea cameras all fine. Doggie gi issues is a bridge too far for me.

[John Boeckeler]

Stop making life so hard for yourself: Get rid of the dog; get a cat and a litter box. It's like saying goodbye to film, closing the darkroom, and going digital.

You'll be happier.

[toto]

Mike, that's the shittiest reason I've heard for the delay in posting of comments.

[Richard]

Yeah, yeah…and my dog ate my homework.

[Terry Letton]

First the state of Photography, then dog poop?

[Nicholas Condon]

Y'all do realize that "The dog ate my homework," hasn't been au courant as an excuse since sometime around the advent of the internal hard drive, right?

Let's try this: "My hard drive crashed at the same time the broadband connection to my cloud account was taken down by a DDoS attack!"

[Francis Martin]

So how is the puppy now? Is he improving and going to be o.k.?

[hugh crawford]

When I was in grade school, my dog also really ate my homework. Teacher of course did not believe me. A couple of days later, there was my homework. The proof was in the pudding so to speak. So to redeem my honor I scooped said homework pudding up in a baggie and took it to school.
Off to the principals office.
In sixth grade I spent so much time in the principals office my parents always noticed that I came home smelling like cigarettes.
The principal and I got along famously, she thought the teacher was an idiot as well. She taught me that if you want to tell someone that they are an idiot, preface it "with all due respect" and stick to verifiable facts.

[Mon frere. I also spent inordinate amounts of time in the principal's office in 5th and 6th grades. I will also swear that this is true: the principal's secretary would ask me where things were in her drawers, because she knew that I rooted through her drawers looking for candy when she was out of the office. She was right, too, I always knew where her rubberbands were or her bandaids or whatever.

We went to a 7th grade classroom for French, and the French teacher in a fit of pique once told me to leave class and not come back until she told me to. I managed to avoid her for two entire months. I spent French class in the library listening to Civil War campfire songs on headphones. Je parle Francais un petit peu seulement.

Hugh, I suspect we could trade stories for many hours. [g] --Mike]

[Hitendra SINKAR]

Like, Michael Perini's "Murphy's law of Dog poop" :) #5 is great!!

[Greg]

"Ask me if I am totally relaxed about transporting a 46-lbs. puppy in obvious gastrointestinal distress in my car."

I know I've done it. Travelled with a rescued dog with intestinal disease and on a drip to a specialist vet some 180kms away! It's all second nature these days.

[Steve Jacob]

Nothing like puppy pooh to keep you up all night.

In an ironic twist, I was a high school teacher for a few years following college and had to explain to the class that the cat had pooped on their homework.

Luckily they were just test papers, so I could grade them but assumed they would not want them back, so I photographed each one and we did a slide show after the film came back from the lab. They each got a slide to take home and keep.

Dogs do make a lot of poop, but cats have access to places that dogs don't. When she was feeling a bit poorly she would hide on top of things and poop off the edge so as not to mess herself up. On this occasion she projected her displeasure from the top of the curtains all over my desk, on which all the test papers were spread out.

Dogs at least have a sense of shame. Cats are malicious and, I suspect, do this sort of thing in revenge for some imagined slight, like changing their brand of cat food or having them neutered.

And it wasn't even MY cat.

[Bob Rosinsky]

Fortunately our eleven-pound pooch, an incorrigible Chiweenie, is only wired to deposit micro poops onto the floor, which is mostly ceramic and "luxury vinyl tile." He loves to pee on the blue rug next to the bathtub. Although he is a high-strung anus-brainus, we still adore him.

[Robert Newcomb]

http://www.viralnova.com/dog-rescue-factory/?md=09174ef49c6445ef4ffa8f79caf07c66&ps=5

You put up with the poop because of all the good stuff they
you - some of the best souls I've ever met were of the K-9 variety.

[Dan Montgomery]

Mike:

Our doggie door (I recommend the twin-flap model) may have been the single best investment/home improvement I've ever done, and I've done many. I could go on and on, but let's just say it was life changing. It wouldn't have mattered in your recent, uh, situation, but for many years ahead....

[Hugh Crawford]

Mike , at some point in highschool some administrative type was looking at my transcript and burst out laughing. There was a note stapled to the folder saying "under no circumstances tell hugh crawford you don't care what he does" To his disappointment I could not think of any incident in particular that note might have related to.

[Hugh Crawford]

Didn't the appropriate transport of a dogs with diarrhea figure in the last presidential election? Ask Mitt how it's done.