Doggie Dump

I'm one of those idiot people who shares her home with a pile of critters. It's interesting to note that the first dog, a stupid Shi-Tzu named Rags, was the bright idea of both my husband and me. The second dog, a giraffe/holstein cow posing as a greyhound, whose name is Moses, was entirely my idea and entirely against my husband's will. Nevertheless, within 24 hours someone was smitten and shortly thereafter, he marched his ass straight up to Philadelphia to bring home HIS dog, a little female my daughter named, in completely original fashion, Lilo. Finally, he said "I'd like a brindle" and about six months later, Dominic came home to live with us. For the mathematically challenged, that's one retarded fluff ball and three leggy, lazy, farting greyhounds. As an aside, I think it's interesting to note that somewhere along the line, they have all become MY dogs. Don't get me started.

Even though Rags was first, he's hardly alpha, but fortunately for him, Moses ignores him and Lilo wrestles with him and has become his best friend. Dominic was a different story. Dominic had lived out his previous three years with a miserable, overbearing chiuaua . . . chiwowa . . . cheewowwa . . . . overgrown sewer rat. When he saw Rags for the first time, you could his expression just dropped as if he were thinking "Crap. Another one." And for the first several days, things around here were a wee bit tense, with Dom growling and snapping every time Rags came within five feet of him.

But things settled down after about a week and I started to drop my guard. Came the afternoon of the big dump. I'll explain. Rags is under the impression that taking a shit is cause for celebrating with wild abandon, usually at top speed and in a circular pattern. He'll squat down, hunch all up, crap like a large rabbit and come straight for the house, fly through the back door and begin racing around the entire house like someone blew bees up his ass. When he's feeling particularly proud of himself, he'll jump onto Lilo and they'll celebrate together for a little while. On this particular day, he was in rare form and took off around the coffee table, made circles around Lilo, and in general was moving so damned fast his back end tried to pass his front end and he was rolling, baby, he was the KING and he was about to make one hell of a huge mistake and he just FLEW through the house and like the world's furriest rocket, he launched himself . . . . straight into Dominic.

Oh. My. God. Y'all. You could see it on his face, the look in his eyes, the sudden horror, the abrupt realization of what he'd just done and if a dog could have come to a screeching halt in mid-air, that's just what he would have done, and if he could have screamed, you would have heard the words "AWWWWW SHIT! WRONG DOG!!!!!!!" ringing in the afternoon air. Dominic, to his credit, simply stood there, rolled up his lips to show shockingly big teeth, and let asshole just bounce right off him. Which is something Rags does a lot, considering this is a dog who had to go flying up the motor home stairs and rebound off the screen door three times before it occurred to him that there was some sort of barrier blocking his progress.

Although the post-shit celebrations have abated not one iota, he has most certainly grown slightly more cautious about his route. A day with no dog blood is a GOOD day.