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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Can I Get You to Read a Post About Dog Shit?

Typically, I'm not terribly into setting challenges for myself.

Sometimes, however, I get kind of into it. The excitement, the thrill, the dipping of the toe into the pool of the unknown, the uncertain outcome-- will I succeed? Will I bellyflop onto the murky pool of life wearing a pair of "BUDWEISER" swimtrunks?

Gee, I don't know. But it'll be fun finding out.

Since my wife and I adopted Molly, our lives have increasingly revolved around dog shit. Finley, being an elder statesman of sorts, is predictable and reliable and knows that vacating the contents of his bowels occurs outside. Molly, being an impish puppy, hasn't really grasped that point yet. Oftentimes, when I enter a room she has been in unsupervised for any length of time greater than two minutes, my eyes furtively scan the floor for mini-muffins or the rug for scat streaks. We have a stalwart supply of rug cleaners/pet stain remover products under our kitchen sink, and it is with these tools that we do battle with our 24-pound puppy who is slowly but surely making me obsessed with shit, in much the same way that a 15-year-old boy is obsessed with the red-head down the street, his own penis, and becoming a meteorologist.

In case you've never lived in suburbia before, I would like to warn you that, if you ever do decide to make the great white move, you will become gradually or instantly obsessed with dog shit, depending on your level of consciousness. Also depending, of course, on whether or not you own a dog. If you don't own a dog, trust me, you will still become obsessed with dog shit-- it will just be the dog shit emanating from the bungholes of other people's dogs. My suburban guilt meter is positively off-the-charts, such that as soon as either of my dogs' rear legs start to bend, I am swooping down with the plastic bag, beginning to catch shit before it even hits the grass.

Yes, I have been known to catch dog shit in the space between my dog's asshole and the ground. Mid-air. The space between. Take that, Dave Matthews. Defying gravity. Take that, Elphaba.

Of course, I feel my diligence slipping now that I have two dogs. When walking them together, I'm not able to be as agile, as coordinated, as graceful. I love when they cross paths and lace me up like a fucking Victorian corset with their leashes. That's classic. If the shit-filled plastic bag gets squeezed in between leashes, it's even better. If the bag rips: instant classic. Just bust out those cameraphones and say "YouTube!"

My wife and I try not to be brand-whores when going to the market. For instance, we're pretty diverse when buying "chocolate sandwich cookies." We won't really eat Oreos, because they have gross things in them (seriously, check it out. Like, octopus bits and shit), and our favorites are Newman O's, but we'll buy Tuxedo cookies or even the store brand if we're really hard up. Even if the creme in the middle is sickly-sweet or if the cookie part is a little chalky, we get through it. We care even less when it comes to dog food. And, really: why should we? Molly eats wristwatch bands and her own shit, and Finley prefers soymilk and broccoli, so why should we sweat Purina vs Science Diet? We don't notice any difference in the shininess of our dogs' coats, the sweetness or foulness of their breath, the vavaciousness of their jump, the decibel of their bark or the springiness of their step no matter what we feed them.

Maybe that just makes us assholes. I don't know.

My wife recently bought a bag of "Kibbles & Bits." I have finally noticed a change in our dogs. The name of this particular dog food should be called "Kibbles & Mountains." The sheer amount of fecal matter that this food produces in our dogs is nothing short of elephantine. I am thinking of obtaining a Class D license so that I can follow our dogs while driving a front-end loader. As if the quantity increase wasn't bad enough, it has also tinted their shit seafoam green. Which is just wrong.

Thank you, my loves, for reading a post about dog shit. I don't know for whom this speaks the worse: you or I.

17 comments:

  1. Perhaps me?
    I hung on every word. :-)

    As the owner of two large dogs (both over 100 lbs) I appreciate the size of the poo. I've found the more expensive the food, the smaller the pile of dung. Less filler. And as obsessed as you are with dog shit now, you'll appreciate this.
    Spring cleanup. All the neighborhood kids come over, I outfit them with bags, gloves and trowels. They get paid per pound. So here are these kidss running around my yard fighting for poo like they are golden Easter eggs coming to me with the bags which is then weighed on the only thing I've found that weight watchers scale to work well on.
    It's brillant. They are happy with the $$in their pockets and I've a clean yard.

    Please don't call child services on me. But you don't have to pay me royalties for the idea if you use it.

    BTW- catching it BEFORE it hits the grass? You're amazing.
    :-)

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  2. Dear f8--

    No, no-- paying neighborhood kids to clean up after your dogs?

    YOU'RE amazing.

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  3. I work in an university library where we have to catalog Masters theses. The one that came in yesterday? Yeah, it was about decomposing pig poo. An entire thesis about pig crap. I was impressed and horrified, all at the same time. And it made me wonder, "Who could actually write about feces for any amount of time?"

    Mr. Apron, that's who. And I'm so glad you did. :)

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  4. The great white move? Hilarious! And so disturbingly true. Love it. And it's as true in Australia as it is over there; the suburbs will make you dog poop obsessed.

    This is grand. Amazing post (especially considering the subject matter).

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  5. yes, yes you can. you don't even need to ask.

    i love shit in all its forms.

    and sorry about your dogs. that's a lot of shit.

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  6. At least you don't have a shit-eater for a dog. One of mine is a cacophagist. It's so, so gross.

    I still kiss her though. Ewwww!!!

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  7. Well, I mean, not directly after she does that!

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  8. I was going to say...we have to feed our dogs a certain brand because one of them makes extremely disgusting poop or veritable mountains of poop on any other brand. It is a pain in the ass, but it is worth a few extra bucks to me not to have to deal with the horrible poop that results from anything less than Iams.

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  9. While I can't share in the joys of witnessing canine poo-phoria. My household is filled with daily BM discourse. It's turned into an obsession because our poo talks to us. We learned its language by way of the book "What's Your Poo Telling You?" courtesy of Urban Outfitters. I hope I've inspired you to expand your universe from the mysteries of the Kibble and Mountains pile to your own. Looking at the waters of the toilet bowl has never been more awe-inspiring. The magic within tells you not of your future but of your past.

    G-day.

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  10. A coworker bought this book for me three years ago.

    I love my shit. Corn nibblettes and all.

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  11. When I feed my pooch the store-brand dog food, she turns into a poop machine; A veritable furry factory of faeces. And it is continuous. She has barely stretched out of her squatting position before she feels another wave of it coming on.

    When, however, I switch to the substantially more expensive brand, she rewards me (yes, I like to see it as a kind of gratitude) by pushing out smaller bullets of poop only twice or three times a day.

    Apparently it's bad for your mutt to be pooping excessively, so I'd change the dog food if I were you. And not solely for the sake of your dog, either.

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  12. oy! the same book??? you're my long lost brother from another mother.

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  13. Yup. We keep the book in our downstairs bathroom as some light, educational reading.

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  14. well mr. you got me to read all through this post. Being a fellow dog-owner, I can relate to the poop-predicaments.
    But I have to admit, that I attempted the cheaper brands for awhile until my dog was farting so horrendously I was worried it was going to stain the walls of my apartment.
    Life is much better since I switched to an odor-reducing formula.
    Purchasing said food makes me feel like a pretentious asshole in the store, but its worth it at home.

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  15. Loved the image of the Victorian corset. So clever!

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  16. Oh gosh, Apron. The image of you diving to catch dogshit before it hits the ground will keep me in chuckles for days.

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  17. Shit. I just realized this was posted ages ago... I am so behind in my reader.

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