As some of you know, Brandy’s megaesophagus makes her regurgitate food from now and then, even after being held upright for an hour after a meal. It’s the way it is and there is nothing anybody can do about it but for me to clean up the mess.
And Brandy’s stool never recovered its roll-on-the-floor-rock-hard consistency after that scary episode almost 2 years ago when every morsel of food she ate came back up for more than a month. I guess her digestive system got a shock when it finally got to see some food. So she gets about a cup of yogurt everyday with her meal, but still her stool is frequently loose enough for me to make bald spots on the lawn to pick off all blades of grass (and weeds… well, OK, mostly weeds) with fecal matter on it.
So when the name Poop Freeze caught my eye while I was going through hundreds of “As Seen On TV” products trying to remember the names of the various products for Sucker I Am post yesterday, I was like, could it be? Could this really be??? The description confirmed that it is in fact what I hoped it would be – You spray it on poop, hair balls, or vomit, etc, and it freezes it down to -62°F so you can clean it up with ease. What a brilliant idea! What an excellent way to improve my everyday life! My life WILL be happier! What an exceptional find!
Supposedly, there was or has been or still is an infomercial on TV for Poop Freeze. And let me tell you, if I had seen the infomercial you can bet your bottom dollar that I would have ordered it before the infomercial was over. Then why haven’t I ordered it yet, you might wonder. Well, it lacked the magic of infomercial. I need to see it work on screen. I need to hear people’s testimonies, you understand.
Then why haven’t I clicked on the infomercial link and watch it online? Frankly, I’m afraid to watch it. Cause I KNOW I’m going to HAVE to order it once I did – there is no if’s, and’s or but’s about it, and writing that Sucker I Am post kinda sobered me up to the fact that I’m an infomercialaholic.
What I’m trying to get at, actually, is this – Anybody willing to try it and let me know if it works? Anyone? Anyone?
When talking about dog poo, I cannot NOT talk about Georgia since she’s a fear pooper dating back to her traumatic “puppyhood” if you could call it that. But I cannot make a lighthearted post about it and make fun of it either cause, you know, it’s just wrong. So I’m afraid this entry is going to be somewhat boring and maybe even a bit depressing, for all of which, I apologize.
The rescue listed Georgia as a special needs dog, not because she’s missing a leg, but because of her behavior, a big part of which was her fear pooping. Having not had any human interaction except seeing her owner throw food on the ground in her direction, she was naturally terrified of people, ANY people, and she pooped out of fear whenever she saw or heard one approaching or moving around her. That’s not the only reason for her fear pooping, but this post will get just too damn long if I go through Georgia’s poop history and its development in as much detail as in the previous installments.
So after I got her, Georgia’s pooping process in the beginning was that of constant mushy poopage plus anal glands, the sweet mother of all glands in my opinion, and if you disagree, you haven’t taken a whiff of the aroma yet. Whenever she saw me, or heard people upstairs, or heard cars driving by, or a anything unfamiliar, she pooped, which is to say she pooped constantly until she had nothing left in her to squeeze out each day. Since she was terrified of going outside, she used wee-wee pads for peeing, but her pooping was mostly done anywhere she happened to be when she got scared for some reason. But slowly she got better and started using the wee-wee pads for poop, and even tried to get to wee-wee pads when she got scared.
After moving to our current place, and once I put up 6ft privacy fence all around the backyard, I let her outside and got rid of wee-wee pads. She only had one accident inside the day I got rid of wee-wee pads, not counting the fear pooping when strangers visit. These days, she poops out of fear only when she sees strangers or we go outside of our realm to go to the vet and such, which is not often.
Now onto her current regular pooping habit. She’s a no nonsense pooper. She hops (having one front leg, she usually hops rather than trots) to a spot, sniffs around hopping back and forth a couple of times, assumes the position, does her business with her eyes fixed on me most of the time because she hates not having me within her view. After she’s done, she runs to me as fast as she can with the biggest smile on her face to present me with her butt to be scratched because she knows she’s done something that deserves the highest praise possible in the form of butt scratches. This she learned from me since one of her foster mom had a husband who didn’t like having a “stupid” dog pooping inside all day, and naturally she used to get even more scared once she pooped. So I praise her lavishly whenever she did her “regular” pooping as opposed to fear pooping. I think that’s why she poops in a few small installments a day rather than pooping once a day, just to get more lovin’ on her butt.
Edited to add Brooklyn’s pooping picture.
Brooklyn, being a Shiba Inu mix and all, is very fussy and meticulous about everything. Naturally that includes her pooping ritual.
When I first adopted Brooklyn, she had a very bad case of diarrhea, the brown liquidy kind which you can’t even pretend to scoop in fear of being the recipient of dirty looks for not picking up after a noticeably skin-and-bones thin dog. Her diarrhea continued for 3 days before she was hospitalized. Since I was worried about her having accidents while I was at work, I covered half the room with wee-wee pads, and she never used them either. Because you know, HOW COULD I EVER! EVEN THINK THAT SHE WOULD DEIGN TO USE WEE-WEE PADS INDOORS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! What was I thinking? Didn’t I know the concept is beneath her? In short, I never have to worry about Brooklyn having an accident inside even when she has a diarrhea. It’s just inconceivable.
That didn’t mean that Brooklyn would joyfully relieve herself once let outside. She used to refuse to poop anywhere near our place. So we had to walk over AT LEAST to the next block for her to even consider sniffing around for “the” spot. Usually, if she could still see our place even when she really had to go, it was safe to say that she would rather hold her poop while pulling on the leash (she usually doesn’t pull since, again, it’s beneath her) with incredible strength to go to a spot where our place is safely out of our view.
Now that we live in a neighborhood where there is no sidewalk and people let their dogs out in their front yards or walk them without leashing them, I can no longer walk Brooklyn because she’s dog aggressive and it’s also very distasteful to her to be peeing or pooping on pavement instead of somebody’s front lawn. So naturally, I had to make her poop and pee in *GASP* OUR OWN BACKYARD!!! Of course she refused to poop or pee. But she didn’t have a choice, did she? And she peed about once a day and pooped about every 4 days or so. She still does sometimes, but usually when it’s wet outside.
(I found it! I knew I had everybody’s pooping picture!)
Even on a nice and clear, and most importantly, DRY day, it’s not easy for Brooklyn to poop. Because God forbid she’s considered easy in any aspect of her life! Everything has to be “just so” for her to assume the position. Wind, noise, smell, air quality, and some other mysterious things factor into her calculation deciding the exact time and place. Usually, one of those factors change in the midst of her push – change in wind direction or its speed, change in noise level, a car driving by, a squirrel moving on the other side of the fence, a leaf falling down, a dog barking 5 blocks away, a fly landing on the neighbor’s tree, Obama losing support, McCain fumbling on war issue, a cyclone in Myanmar, a star exploding in the galaxy far far away, etc, etc. And she would have to make necessary changes accordingly by looking for the perfect spot again and again and again. And yes, that quarter of a step to the left or right matters!
When she’s done, she breaks out of her pooping stance with a couple of steps, in which her hind legs are spread as wide as possible so as not to touch any poopage that rolled and strayed away from its kind in the pile. Then she trots away as if she cannot BELIEVE I’d let a poo pile inside our own yard. And she licks herself.
Regrettably, it seems I don’t have any pictures of Brooklyn pooping, only some peeing pictures. Here is one of her licking herself instead. I will add a picture as soon as possible.
Finally I present to you a whole entry dedicated to poop and pooping process. Some of you might ask what took you so long? given my unusual fondness for discussing it. Well, I’m going to make up for it by writing a shit load – a whole series about poop. This is the first installment of the series, starting with Foster, … of course.
A few years ago when Foster first came, he hated pooping. It took away from his precious playing time – read annoying Brandy time. Why waste time relieving himself when he can “play”? So he held it. I could always see he had to go, circling that perfect spot, or sometimes scooting around on his butt, but he held it until he absofuckinglutely had to go.
Not only that, he couldn’t wait until he finished pooping… naturally. So he would break his pooping stance with the poop that still not completely cleared its rightful passage to be born, and try to run and play. Of course he would realize the poop is still hanging out of his butt, and would start walking funny, like he had some turd sticking out of his butt, which was indeed the case here, and we ALL know how them dogs freak out when a piece of turd hanging out bounces against their precious bum! Right? Especially when that said piece of turd is hanging by a thread of grass he chomped on earlier? Then he’d assume the position again reluctantly and start pushing again. Repeat this process two or three times, and that’s how he used to poop (I’ll discuss his appetite for fresh poop later in another entry), or give birth to his poopage – have you noticed that his pooping process used to be remarkably similar to that of birthing? This process made poop scooping chore very interesting (read frustrating) for me since I would have to try to follow his track to pick up any unfortunate piece of poop that fell down haphazardly while he was running with it sticking out of his butt. And try to do that at night with a flash light.
Now that he seems to have understood Einstein’s theory of relativity and accepted that time doesn’t exist, he no longer holds his poop. Nevertheless, after he’s done, he very cautiously breaks his pooping stance, in stages, and walk a couple of steps gingerly, still crouched ready to push if needed, as if he still has turd hanging out of his butt, which is rarely the case any more unless he has munched on an inordinate amount of grass, to make absolutely certain he doesn’t have anything that might bounce off his butt. And then he takes off as if his life depended upon it. For somebody like myself who really does fart to amuse herself when left by herself, it provides me with boundless amusement. And people shake their heads and ask how I live without TV?
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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