Friday, May 1, 2015

Poop Patrol

Our lives are centered around poop. Thinking about poop. Cleaning up poop. Observing the signs of needing to poop. No we are not new parents to a pooping bundle of baby-joy, we are the parents of fur babies, two of them and they poop A LOT!

No one warned us about the amount of poop two dogs produce. I guess we could have intuited by the amount of food they eat, but I had no idea how quickly two dogs would go through a 30lb bag of dog food! They say, "Oh two is no more than one." "Two is just the same amount of work as one." Liars! I swear they say the same thing about children. But two dogs is not the same as one, anymore than two children is the same as one. 

It's out there, I said it, if dogs are any indication of children, 2 
 1, period, dot!

It is twice the amount of food, twice the amount of water, twice the amount of attention, twice the amount of poop, twice the amount of poop scooping and twice the amount of time spent making sure both dogs poop when they are supposed to before you have to go back to work. Not. The. Same.

Nub-tails and lots-o-toys - rough life! ;)
I know our dog's pooping schedule as well as mine and I spend a most of my day concerned with their poop. And yes I do pay that much attention to my dog's buttholes! Don't judge. They have nub-tails (which are the cutest, I can't imagine having a dog with a tail!), the butthole is prominent and obvious, especially when it is puckering out or winking at you (both of which, we have the joy of seeing on a semi-regular basis). You notice! Actually it is hard to not notice. (When we saw that video of a dog barking and his butthole opening and closing synchronized with his barking, circulating around, we laughed not because it was funny, which it was, but because of the all-to-familiar vision - we just never thought to video it and make it go viral).
 These are what you call nub-tails! 
And see the opportunity for butthole observation?? 
You can't not look!

We are very conscious of never leaving them too long between potty breaks. Neither have ever had an accident in the house and we never force them to go longer than we could go. We just feel awful to do that. To this end we are hyper aware of their schedule. They poop in the morning when we all get up, they poop at lunch time, sometimes around or before dinner time, and normally before bed. That is a shit-ton of shit.

It never occurred to me that they might NOT need to poop at the same time?? What a crazy idea, right?! Why in God's name I thought two dog buttholes would be synchronized is ridiculous I know. You know what though, they are actually pretty much on the same scheduled. Phew! They both go on the occasional poop protest especially when it is cold or wet out. But they pretty much have the same scheduled, which is nice. However, when they don't, it ALWAYS is when they know we are leaving. One will dilly-dally, but eventually poop, while the other one walks around, walks around, gets distracted by a bug, or a noise, or a rain drop, or the wind, as the pucker in the butthole protrudes further and further out, to the point you are pretty convinced you just saw the poop. It becomes a game of "I don't need to poop, even though you can see my poop."

When we first got Oli he would immediately whimper at the door, run out do his business, run back in. For whatever reason he has picked up Addi's wonderful habit of holding his poop to enjoy all the curious splendors of the world, where the point of protrusion is inevitable. And for you non-dog owners, with puckering buttholes comes stinky-ass dog farts, which are nostril burning, eye watering and frequent, especially when said dog needs to poop and has been playing the I-don't-need-to-poop-game for longer than is funny anymore.

Oli's squishy face in his fav place on the back of the couch.
We joke about the poop game, but then secretly wonder if it is dog mind-poop-control over their humans; which, if is the case, our dogs have mastered it! Although they typically poop when they are supposed to and pretty much on command (because we are so hyper-aware of their schedule) they seem to get a twisted, albeit uncomfortable, pleasure of holding their poop if the conditions do not meet their standards. Full fledged poop protest that we cannot create a soothing zen-spa like poop sanctuary. Bad humans, bad humans.

Addi has a knee injury right now, which we are babying and forcing her to be still (you try to tell a hyper active dog to not run and play and jump, IN SPRING, yeah right! I laughed at the vet when he told us to force her to stay indoors, but we are trying). Typically at lunch time I let them out in the fenced yard to run, and sniff, and play, and pee and poop. Right now they have to go out separately to avoid any chance of running and playing. I don't know about you, but rationalizing with two very rambunctious dogs that they cannot play or run or even go outside together is pointless. Our back door pretty much is a revolving door of "oh please, oh please let me out side," but as the other one comes in, the pleading one, immediately wants in too. 

Addi as a puppy. Look at the nub-tail, awwww!
They no longer can pee on each other's pee. They can no longer poop together and that adds a WHOLE new level of poop protest. God forbid the neighbor's dog is outside, or the wind picks up, or a bumblebee flies by, because then the whole poop-brigade-game continues of pleading to go in or out, farting as they run up or down the outside stairs, butthole winking, protruding and awaiting for the inevitable turd that has been held way too long.

It makes you wonder who is the master here, the mind-poop-control masters or the poop-scooper-humans? Dogs 1, humans 0.



Our babies!