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.
I wish I knew how old Brooklyn is. I have had her since the fall of 2003, and the rescue I got her from estimated her to be 2 years old. Because she was not an owner surrender, it meant that she was at least 2 years old, which, as any dog person would know, means she could have been 2 years old or 3 or 4 or 5 or…. You really can’t tell how old a dog is after he/she’s fully grown.
Anyway, if she really was 2 years old back then, that means she’s 6 and a half right now. But something in my gut tells me she’s older than that. These are the reasons:
- In the beginning of this year, I freaked out when she yelped and cried for good 3 minutes after running full speed to chase some birds in the morning. She was diagnosed to have something exactly like sciatica (pinched nerves) in humans.
- She had been steadily gaining weight even though I had been giving her the same amount of food. The vet ruled out any medical cause, and she told me when a dog gets older, some dog’s metabolism does a nosedive, and that might be the case with Brooklyn. So I’m giving her way less food than before.
- She increasingly has a hard time chewing. Simple turkey bones or even muscle meat gives her problem and she seems to be frustrated by it.
The last one kinda bothers me a lot tonight – something about the way she ate today. When I think about it, she has never really loved chewing as far as I know. Yes, a dog who prefers not to chew. She’s a weirdo, what else is new? But now, something’s different. It’s more of inability than unwillingness. That worries me. A lot.
Brooklyn absolutely despises getting wet. She hates it so friggin much it’s not even funny. It’s not unusual for her to pee once a day and hold her poop for 3 or 4 days if it rains continuously for several days. And when she finally can’t hold it any more but if it’s still raining, she sprints out to the yard, makes a little poop mountain, and sprints back to the deck and waits to be let inside. Once she didn’t even pee for more than 36 hours.
Brooklyn also refuses to step on the grass on very humid summer days. If it’s pouring outside, she does not move an inch from the spot on the deck right in front of the glass door until Georgia is done peeing and pooping and making splashes in the mud puddles and finally lets back in, cause we all know, although the deck is not covered, that it’s much much better to get wet on the deck holding our pee and poop instead of stepping on the wet grass and mud to relieve ourselves.
We had snow last night, which turned into rain overnight, which made slush mud puddles all over the backyard. So when I got up this morning, Brooklyn was all happy and excited as usual that she got to go outside after a long 8 hours of outdoors deprivation. But once she got outside and took in the situation standing on the edge of the deck refusing to step down to the ground, she gave me the look that said “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”, turned around, walked back to the glass door, and stood there for 30 minutes, until Georgia’s done, never sitting down of course because that might be misconstrued as she’s comfortable. Then we got back inside.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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