Jeez Louise

Every morning at about 5:30 or 6 (6:30 if they’re drunk or something) the dogs wake me up and I take them for their morning constitutional. We go out to the field beside our house, we walk around, I sing them little songs, they pee and poop, then we head home. If it’s earlier than 5:30 I lay on the couch and try to get in another 15 or 20 minutes of naptime (if it’s 4:00 like they were doing for a week or so in September, I try to sleep for at least another hour!). People are like “Why are you waking up to take them out so early! Are you spoiling them!” – well, because that’s when they need to go. There hasn’t been one time that we’ve brought them out that they haven’t actually needed to do their thing. There’s only been a handful of times since they came to live with us that they haven’t pooped first thing in the morning… so I think they’re on a pretty good schedule. Usually once we come back in they settle down and snuggle me (thus making me sleepier because puppy hugs! Puppy hugs make you drowsy, it’s true science) and we hang out until it’s time for me to shower and get ready. Then I wake Rob up and he comes down and does his thing with them when I leave for work.

Now, these puppies (are they still puppies? They’re 5 months now) are very awesome, and smart. But at the same time, they are like little kids in that anytime anything vaguely interesting is in front of them, they want to grab it up and chomp it. Life is like a buffet for them. A huge, stinky buffet. They find anything that smells like anything. It’s like they have RADAR. And their tastes aren’t all that discriminating. Old piece of potato that fell behind the stove two months ago and I finally got around to sweeping out back there don’t judge me? CHOMP! I once caught them licking a dead bird that was under the trees in our backyard. Luckily they were only 8 weeks old at the time and the bird was way huger than their mouths. You can guarantee that if a bird died in our yard today? Chomp. Sprocket is usually the first one to find anything and pick it up, then Doozer grabs it from him, then most of the time it ends up broken in half and Rob and I are left chasing down two dogs with half a rotten zucchini from the neighbours’ compost bin each.

We can always tell when they’ve grabbed up something they shouldn’t have because they try to keep it secret, but they’re SO BAD at keeping secrets! Turning their heads away, zooming off into a corner where usually they just like to be around people, looking all innocent “What’s up?” with an old paper towel hanging out of the side of their mouth – so generally we get the stuff away from them right away. They don’t really fight to keep it, either – they know that we’re the boss and that we can have stuff from inside their mouths if we want to have it.

The field beside our house is huge, and flat, with short grass. For the past, oh, I’d say week or so, every other morning, Sprocket has come into the house with a crab leg in his mouth. A crab leg! I know he’s getting them in the field, but I never notice him finding them, and I don’t ever see a legless crab out there in the field. Of course it’s dark out when I take them outside in the morning, so I don’t ever see him picking it up. And he doesn’t do any of the secret “hide the treasure” moves until we get in the house – it’s like “okay I have crab leg in my mouth but first I must concentrate on pooping then we’ll go back to the lair and I will chomp the heck out of this thing!” I have scoured that field in the daylight and haven’t seen hide nor hair of a crab or any other crustacean. Rob takes them out during the day, and they haven’t found any crabby parts when they’ve been out with him. Yet, morning after morning, as soon as we get in the house, Sprocket tries to make a run for his crate, which is pretty dumb when he still has his leash on. I drag him back to me. He’s got a look in his eyes like “This thing is so stinky and gross! I have to eat it! C’mon, Mom, let me have this flavour in my mouth! It was free!” I pry his mouth open, and there is the crab leg. I take it from him. He looks at me sadly, like he’s thinking “Well, it was worth a try. I knew I wouldn’t get to keep it”. I feel guilty and give him a Milk Bone. He carries the Milk Bone over to the pile of Milk Bones he and Doozer have left in the corner because apparently they don’t actually like Milk Bones anymore. Can you blame them? Why eat a Milk Bone if you could have some garbage?

It’s been a couple of days since the last crab leg extravaganza so I wasn’t really on the lookout this morning. The dogs didn’t seem to be, either – no more sniffing around one particular spot than usual, nothing. But then, as soon as we got in the house? ZOOM. Sprocket Rocket was headed for his crate. I caught up with him, opened his mouth – just in time to see him swallow this piece of crab leg. I think it was just the pincer or something because it was too small for me to grab and get out of his mouth so down the hatch it went. He looked so triumphant! OH HELLS YEAH I ATE THAT GARBAGE DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? Doozer looked on, in awe of his crafty brother. I shrugged. “Well played, Sprock. You got it this time. No more crab legs though, dude. It’s gross!”

I woke Rob, went off to take my shower, and told him about the morning’s misadventure while I tried to find the car keys (they were hung up on the car-key thing. I never look there because I never hang them up).

I just got to work, and this is the email that was waiting for me from my husband:

Well, in a shock to no one, Sprocket puked a little while ago. I then forced him to attend a seminar entitled “Shellfish from the outdoors: Friend or Foe?” which seems to have taught him nothing at all, as he almost immediately attempted to eat his barf. Rather disheartening.

Shine on, you crazy diamond. Shine on.