Welcome to the Addiverse

Welcome to the Addiverse.....forget the universe, this is the Addiverse...and, what a strange place it is.

Now, about that dog diarrhea....

Lucy, Bark of Poteidaia (a 17 lb shih tzu/maltese mix, affectionately named after Lucy Lawless and Gabrielle, Bard of Poteidaia, who is defintitely NOT a foo foo dog but more like if Ellen DeGeneres was a dog, she'd be Lucy--why she's so big, we have no idea but the mama swears she really is shih tzu and malteze but we remain skeptical), got into some disgustingly rich raccoon poop after running away on my watch. I know better not to let her go outside without her leash, but I learn the hard way. Anyway, she runs straight across the street--never a good thing--and flocks right to this giant pile of the most vile-smelling poop on the face of the earth. I put our other dog (Freckles Warrior Princess--a shih tzu/lhasa mix with a bad attitude and a worse underbit) in the car and go to get Lucy. I can smell her from the street. She's smiling and rolling and eating this mess, getting all covered with the present from the neighborhood critter, smacking her lips in delight. Dear god, my eyes were watering when I picked her up--this was no regular poop. She's covered and I'm trying to carry her at arm's length and Freckles is watching from the car wondering what the hell is going on and I have to get her into the house for an emergency bath and she's just loving every minute of the tasty poop she is licking off her fur! The wife was NOT amused that (1) Lucy was off her leash when I know she is just going to run away, (2) that Lucy had run away and had rolled in poop, (3) that Lucy smelled like something died three months ago, (4) that I smelled like something died three months ago and (5) that Lucy is actually eating this crap (literally).

Now, I know you don't know the wife yet, but let me just say she is very fastidious-obsessive-compulsive-clean-rule-following woman and she is NOT entertained by me at this moment.

Well, all that poop eating led to Lucy getting sick. I'm talking exploding diarrhea. Not just a little case of shooting poop--we're talking flying everywhere. For days. The wife was no longer speaking to me or Lucy at this point. (Freckles, having more brain capacity than me and Lucy together, was smart enough to lie low and wait out the storm from somewhere under a bed.) I slept on the floor with Lucy, as every time she woke up and stood up to go outside, poop would machine-gun right out of her poor little butt. Woof! So, when she'd wake up, I'd grab her and run out the front door. I had to take two days off work to stay home with her....after all, it was my fault she was shooting shit.


Photo to the right: Not Lucy Pooping, but gives you a visual. Thanks to snappyjones at Flickr.com.

I finally had to take Lucy to the vet 'cuz the diarrhea wasn't getting any better and I was tired of not sleeping and because the wife was getting more irritated by the mili-second. (Who can blame her? Cleaning up diarrhea every two hours isn't very fun and the new carpeting really didn't need such initiation.) I try to scoop up some poop for the vet to look at, but it's REALLY hard to pick up dog diarrhea. I got some in the baggie and off Lucy and I went. Of course, the vet and the assistant get this HORRIFIED look on their faces when they hear the words "raccoon feces," as this is a very bad thing for dogs to eat. I guess there's some bad juju with raccoon poop--trust me, I did a lot of research on the web and found this poop to be a bad, bad thing--for people and for pets--and these ladies didn't do anything to calm my sleep-deprived nerves. (Side note: the web is amazing--who woulda thunk you could find photos of raccoon poop on the web? There are all sorts of pictures of it. Close ups, in various settings, with different textures. Is this a great world or what?) They sent us back home with directions to feed the Bark of Poteidaia some rice with hamburger.

Suffice it to say, it took several more days and an injection from the vet (for Lucy, not me) to get things back to "normal" in the Addiverse. None of us have had the balls to find out if we have the yucky raccoon worm problem that is out there.

Ask me if Lucy's been outside without her leash since then....