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.
Brandy is a shy pooper. She finds a spot as far from me as possible, looks at me to see if I’m looking, and assumes the position only when I look away from her. She always starts with her back towards the audience, but she’s also a walk-around pooper. She makes little steps while pooping, and because of her efforts to to see if her poop is coming out safely without getting hurt by turning her head around, she walks in a spiral.
After Foster came, Brandy developed another habit. Foster, of course, didn’t let Brandy poop in peace. It’s just not in his nature. He would “attack” Brandy EVERY SINGLE TIME she assumed the position, which of course pissed the living daylights out of Brandy. Worse, he would “attack” her while she’s in the midst of the process, the turd half way out, in which case she had to just helplessly take it. Sometimes Foster would start running towards her and Brandy would see him coming – I could see the panic in her eyes, and push with all her might, and at the very last minute she would take off with that last piece of poopage flying out of her ass making a nice trajectory of a few feet.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I tried to contain Foster. But it was when he still did not listen to me, and when Brandy is pooping, he could see or hear nothing else. How could he, if you think about it? He sees this great opportunity to jump helpless Brandy and be the annoying cute little brother he could. How could he possibly have any cells left in his teeny little head to register anything other than the picture of him successfully pester the crap out of Brandy, quite literally I might add.
Now that I can call off Foster and make him stay, Brandy very cleverly runs over to the farthest spot of her choosing when she sees Foster not too far away from me, then she looks at me and waits. I call to Foster, who eagerly runs to me and sits and scratches me raw repeatedly gives me a paw repeatedly and tries to lick some part of me, ANY part of me: touch me, stroke me, rub my belly, scratch my ear, how about my butt, pet me, scratch my neck, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh? When the containment of Foster is satisfactory for Brandy, only then she proceeds with her pooping.
On a side note, Brandy hasn’t forgotten or forgiven Foster for his lack of basic manners regarding pooping process. So she started taking revenge by doing exactly the same thing to Foster what he did to her long time ago. Luckily for Foster, Brandy, as I stated many times before, is so fiercely loyal to me that after calling her off and making her stay right next to me a couple of times, she now looks at me whenever Foster sniffs around for the spot to poop. Then I signal her to come, and she comes with her eyes fixed intensely on Foster, and stays right next to me until Foster breaks out of his pooping stance, at which time she flies off after him.
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.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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