Poop!

Meet my two dogs:  Alex, a 13 year old lab/beagle mix, and Hunter, a 2 year old beagle/hound mix. 

I got Alex in a parking lot in Fryeburg, Maine, and he was the only blonde haired dog in the litter, the rest being black.  He does have a little black patch of hair on his back though as a shout out to his brethren.  Alex has been everywhere with me:  back and forth between Maine and DC, on a small plane out to North Haven, multiple campaign offices across Maine and every single piece of furniture I own, as evidenced by the trail of hair he leaves behind.  He’s a very mellow dog and permits me to sleep late in the morning.

I stopped at Wagtime here in DC to pick up treats for Alex one evening.  The owner Lisa asked me what kind of dog I had and after telling her, told me I should come out back and see the rescue dogs that needed a home.  I thought no way as I nervously walked into the back room.  Amongst all the yelping and frenetic activity, there was Hunter lying alone on a dog bed looking sad and lost.  Lisa explained that I could take him home for a night or two and that even if I didn’t decide to adopt him, any night outside of the shelter would do him good.   She also explained that Hunter had been rescued from a kill shelter in Virginia which absolutely made my heart break.

So I returned the following Friday and picked up Hunter for a doggy holiday in my Dupont condo with Alex.  Lisa posted a note on Facebook that Hunter was on a sleepover and said, “Be a good boy Hunter.  It’s up to you now.”  Well Hunter behaved perfectly, and he never went back.  Most importantly, he seemed to understand the first and foremost point of going outside for a walk.  I signed the adoption papers a week later, and it was then that Hunter yelled Gotcha! 

Hunter is polar opposite to Alex.  He sleeps right next to my head at night, and he is nervous and hyper.  He can put a flock of seagulls to shame with his high pitched warning howl.  He is starved for attention which admittedly I can’t always provide, but I seek solace in the fact that his life is far better with me than the shelter or the near fate he almost suffered in Virginia.

Lif e with the two dogs has been good except for the pooping.  Yup – I said it here on the blog – the first dirty word so to speak I have used.  While it is significantly better than when Hunter first yelled Gotcha and proved to be completely clueless to the point of going outside, we still have frequent issues with the concept.

Just this week during a 2 day rain a thon, Hunter refused to go to the bathroom outside, far preferring the comfort of a heated home.  If he was human, you know he would have a fur cover on his toilet just to keep his bum warm on the porcelain in winter.  They do work well I must admit because my grandmother used to have one.  Rather than go outside in the rain, Hunter would just look up at me after Alex had already gone 4 times with an expression of, “Are you kidding me?  I am not squatting out here in the rain.”

I love the looks I get when the dogs do in fact decide to poop outside.  One man recently said to me a minute or so after Alex let one rip on a patch of dirt between the sidewalk and the road, "Excuse me sir, can I ask you a question?"  I thought to myself that my answer didn't really matter seeing he had already asked me a question.  "Yes,"  I said.  "Did you pick up after your dog?" he asked.  I stared at him in disbelief and answered, "Um - of course.  Right here in the little red bag in case you missed it."  I love self righteous community policers.  I wanted to tell him to mind his own business, get back in his little yuppy Volvo and drive back to the suburb, but I refrained.

Then there was the woman last week who twisted her face in disgust as Hunter, for once, actually pooped.  I wanted to tell her, "Get a grip lady.  It's poop.  We all do it and just like my dog, I am sure yours stinks too."  Again, I refrained.

Back to the problem at hand.  I have tried everything from quarantining Hunter to the kitchen to only feeding him at night to longer walks.  Nothing seems to work.  Amazingly, Alex has learned how to push his way through closed doors which paves the way for Hunter to leave behind special treats in off limit areas like my bedroom.  Ugh!

But the problem now is I think that Alex has joined in the bad behavior and is content to let me think it is all Hunter.  Whenever I lecture Hunter, which sounds to him like the teacher in a Charlie Brown film, Alex just sits there all patronizing like Lucy and thinks to himself, “Silly Hunter, when will you learn?” 

I am considering putting different food colorings in their food to catch the guilty culprit.  If the poop is blue, it’s Hunter!  If it’s green, then it's Alex!  But if it’s purple, I am not sure what I will do!

I am really hoping that all of this too shall pass.  It’s frustrating, but in the end, all worth it.  Dogs provide you a sense of responsibility and keep you grounded.  They don’t talk back, and they are always glad you’re around.  I don’t consider myself the best pet owner on the planet, but they do help me to maintain a sense of purpose.

Are we there yet?  Hell no!  But like the signs in the Bible that indicate Armageddon, I am convinced that no poop for a month will be a sign that we’re getting close.

Call On Me

In between rounds at the bi-weekly trivia game at Jr’s, one of my dearest friends, Jim, announced that he needed some new material from ITunes to include in his workout mix.  Rising to the occasion, I grabbed a piece of paper and informed him that I knew the perfect song for his repertoire.  Trying to avoid the spills of lady drinks (aka Rose Kennedys) on the bar, I wrote 5 words on the slip of paper:  Call on Me – Eric Prydz.  Then, we went back to the game and managed to place third after an abysmal start.  Being a school night and all, we called it a night at the conclusion of the game.

The following morning, while having my daily iced coffee, I received the following email (expletives removed) from Jim via Facebook, “So I look in my shirt pocket this morning, and I’m like Omigod, some guy named Eric Prydz said ‘call on me’ but didn’t give me his number.  Then I googled it.  D’OH!”  Nearly spitting out my iced coffee, I doubled over with laughter as it was perhaps the funniest thing I had heard in weeks, especially given the racy video that accompanies the song on You Tube.

But it made me think.  No one actually gives out their phone number anymore.  In fact, no one ever calls anyone anymore.  Tweets, texts, emails – you name it – short quips and status updates have replaced meaningful conversations either face to face or over the phone, and I am as guilty as the next person.  In fact, I would venture to say I have a downright phobia of talking on the phone and have even removed my land line here in DC although I keep the land line in Portland just to remember the good ‘ol days.

Don’t get me wrong; I have a love affair with Facebook, and it’s allowed me to catch up with some old friends which would have otherwise been impossible in the midst of our busy lives.  But have I really started using the “check-in” application on Facebook?  Yup – guilty as charged.  In fact, I get a special thrill about checking in at certain places like the gym and leaving out the frequency of other check-ins like Jr’s thereby confusing people that I lead a super human life committed to healthy living.  Once an intern asked another staffer of mine who Peter’s friend Jr was because she had heard me speak of him often?  The staffer laughed and replied, “Oh that’s just a bar he likes to go.” 

But in between all the electronic check-ins this morrning, I decided to nervously pick up the phone and actually check in with an old friend and colleague whom I haven’t spoken to in over a year.  The conversation actually lasted more than 2 minutes, and we employed the full use of complex sentences complete with proper subject and verb agreement.  In those ten minutes, I learned a lot and even laughed a little.  And amazingly, like riding a bicycle for the first time in years, I remembered how to do it:  communicating in real life and not over an electronic device that relies on satellite signals.

Most importantly, we got to share updates on our dogs that we got together in a parking lot in Fryeburg, Maine 13 years ago this May.  They both have gray hair now, they both move a little slower, they both have had unsightly lumps and bumps that are commonplace for dogs, and they both are a little hard of hearing.  But I learned that my friend’s dog has cancer, and it caused me to think back on all the joy both of our dogs have brought us.  Our two dogs even flew together on a small plane out to the island of North Haven because we had missed the ferry for a staff retreat.  We thought about putting scarfs over their heads and sunglasses on as they deplaned just to invoke a little Jackie O drama, but we didn’t. 

My Older Dog Alex

You never know how long you will have with a beloved pet, but you come to appreciate each moment a little bit more the older they get.  And it’s exactly for learning this kind of information that we should put the blackberry down and pick up the phone once and a while.  We might just have a meaningful human interaction that is actually worthy of a status update or check-in.