In the Beginning it was all dogs and poop

I started writing this blog at the end of 2005, mainly in a pathetic but creative self-serving attempt to save myself from spending boatloads of money on therapy and to give myself a place to vomit all those thoughts swirling around in my head onto paper.  Fast forward to 2013.  I'm still self-serving and I'm still enamoured with babbling but my brain is a much quieter place to be--which is sad, in some ways, as I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the constant chatter.  I think it might still be there but I can't remember because peri-menopause has left my brain fuzzy-fied.

Because it's been so long since I first started writing and because "Poop for Peace Day" is just around the corner, I thought it be a fabulous idea to feature a few of the first and/or some of my most favorite blog entries, inserting them between new posts.  Before publishing the favorites, I am certainly going to re-work them, as if I wanted you to go back and just read the original, I would give you the link and call it a day.  I figure a few new blogs with a "best and earliest of the Addiverse" blog might be a handsome idea. The following blog is a re-work of my first official blog entry, from the end of December 2005.  I think it explains nothing about the Addiverse except that I love my dogs more than I like most people and that I am obsessed by poop (of which I have never understood)...which in itself explains a lot......

Now, about that dog diarrhea.... allow me to introduce to you Lucy, Bark of Poteidaia, a 17 lb Shih Tzu/Maltese fancy mutt mix, affectionately named after Lucy Lawless and Gabrielle, Bard of Poteidaia (POE-ta-DEE-ah). The Bark is definitely NOT a foo foo dog. She's more like what Ellen DeGeneres would be if she were a dog.  Why Lucy is so big, we have no idea but the mama-non-breeder-breeder swears she really is shih tzu and malteze.  We remain skeptical.

Lucy is a certified "shot-out-of-a- dog-at-some-lady's-house" kind of dog. I got to meet Lucy when she was only four weeks old.  A co-worker brought in a box of puppies and who can resist a box of puppies? I took one look at that box and knew I was gonna have one of those puppies.  I didn't know how to tell the wife, after all, it took me 16 long years to get a dog and now I had the audacity to ask for number two.  I looked in the box and pointed to a puppy, announcing "THAT is the dog I want." I wrote a deposit check right then and there.  Lucy (I had already named her) was lively and obnoxious and hilarious and bouncing all over the cardboard box. I took photos of her and chased the wife around the house with them. I begged for dog number two. All that whining and begging got me what I asked for and we became a two-dog family.

Before I go further, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that Lucy has an older sister named Freckles Warrior Princess, the brainiac dog smart enough to avoid raccoon poop and antics that Lucy and I find ourselves drawn to.  Freckles is calm and refined and rule-abiding, much like the wife.  She used to be a certified "Canine Good Citizen, a registered therapy dog. I say used to be because when we got Lucy two years into FWP's tenure on the planet, Freckles became evil and morphed into a "Canine Bad Citizen" Dog.  So much for getting a second dog to keep the first dog company.  Freckles is a --gasp--pet store dog. We claim ignorance, as we didn't learn about the whole puppy mill thing until AFTER we purchased her.  We were mortified that we had contributed to this horror.  (We have since proclaimed our dismay over puppy mills and pet stores and the likes.) The wife picked her out, as she seemed to be the calmest one of the bunch. We later learned that she had such a bad case of Ghiradia that she could barely function. (That's a different poop story for a different day. Her poop was so infected that it just about wiggled when it came out.) It was a tough start to life--I almost killed her by accident the first night with this horrific flea collar, then I almost squished her under the garage door, then she had the ghiradia-soft-serve-poop that lasted for months. Despite her tough start to life, Freckles turned into a very gifted, ridiculously smart dog who crushed the competition in obedience class.  I am proud to say the trainer called her "the hardest working Shih Tzu in America." 

This dog was worth waiting 16 years for!

In an effort to properly introduce you to Ms. LBOP, I start with her efforts to get into some disgustingly rich, thick, piled-high raccoon poop after running away on my watch. I know better not to let her go outside without her leash, but I have to (repeatedly) learn the hard way and thus I skipped the leash with the hopes she'd stick around. I'm not sure if it's because I'm lazy, distracted, delirious, hopeful or confident, I decided this is a fabulous idea. 

It is not.  Lucy, being Lucy, runs straight across the street--never a good thing, not even looking both ways before crossing the street--and romps 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 under bite) in the car and go to get Lucy. I use the car because I know if I chase after Lucy, she will just keep running away.  With the car, I know she will get in, as what dog doesn't want to go for a ride in the car? 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. I drive the car three houses up, hop out and leave the passenger door open, hoping she will see it and run toward me....  

Of course, she doesn't.  Why leave tasty poop behind for a car ride? 

I get out of the car and try to sneak up on her.  Dear god, my eyes were watering when I picked her up--this was no regular poop. She's covered in sticky, disgusting, gag-producing goo 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.  I have to put her in the car as I can't carry her back to the house.  I know putting the car is going to be a VERY bad idea but I don't know what else to do.  I plop her in and burn a u-turn without looking.  

Gagging the whole way, I get her into the house for an emergency bath.  She seems to be loving every minute of the tasty poop and I can't get her to stop licking it off her fur! Unfortunately, the wife is home and she is NOT amused by anything that is transpiring before her eyes.  I lose big points for Lucy being off leash when I know she is just going to run away. I lose more points because Lucy had run away and had rolled in poop. I am in the negative points because Lucy--and the house and car--now smell like something died three months ago.  I might as well move out of the country because I too smell like something died three months ago. 

Did I mention that the wife is a very fastidious-obsessive-compulsive-clean-rule-following woman who is decidedly not a dog person? She is NOT entertained by me--or anything--at this moment.

Lucy and I live through the bath and through the wife's understandable fury.  As you can imagine, all that poop eating led to Lucy getting sick the next day. I'm talking exploding diarrhea. Not just a little case of shooting poop--we're talking flying everywhere. For days. After day three, the wife was no longer speaking to me or Lucy.  (Freckles, having more brain capacity than me and Lucy combined, 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.

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 milli-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 doggie-poop-soup into the baggie and off Lucy and I went. 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. They gave her an exam, asked if the yucky raccoon poop had worms in it (um, I can't say I took time to look), continued to look serious and stern,gave her a shot to get the shit to stop, then sent us home with directions to feed LBOP some rice with hamburger.  They demand we avoid raccoon poop with all our might.  (If you want to understand their concern, google information on raccoon poop.  It's not a good thing to eat.)

Suffice it to say, Lucy is not good at following rules. I'm not good at following rules. We've been able to avoid raccoon poop but all those rules keep getting in the way.

Ten and a half years later, Lucy and I are still working on that.  The wife says we've improved but I think we've got a ways to go......

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The Addiverse wishes a speedy recovery, three hawk and Argo! Go get 'em grrrrrls!

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