Of Moose and Men: Bouvier Redux

Good thing they're cute when they're young!

I can tell you one thing that is an absolute certainty: God makes puppies and babies really cute so there are fond memories to carry you through certain times when they have grown older. This is particularly true of dogs, as you can see from this post from over two years ago.

This morning started out like most others, with a small dog scratching at me before the butt-crack of dawn to remind me he had not been fed, and was going to perish of starvation if the situation wasn’t corrected forthwith. The scratching is just Watson’s way of inciting his brother, Holmes, to riot. In short order a huge, furry nose is thrust into my face for a breath check.

Being six AM, I grope around in the dark to find my jeans while being body-slammed by one-hundred pounds of Bouvier.

“Lay down,” I hiss, hoping not to wake Mrs. Poynor. The response is not positive. “Lay down. LAY DOWN, DAMN IT!”

“Holmes, lay down, sweetie,” comes a barely audible mumble from the other side of the bed. “Mom wants to sleep a little longer.”

There is immediate compliance. So much for the whole “Lord and Master of the House” thing.

I like the smell of snow. I do not know why.

The routine dictates I finish pulling on my clothes and stumble barefoot through the pre-dawn darkness to let the dogs out as the big dog blunders past me, racing the little dog to the door. This morning was different. The lummox hung back a bit, allowing the little dog and me to get to the door first. I wasn’t alert enough to notice the aberration. In no mood to fool around, I urged Holmes to go out the door. He hung his head and slowly approached the door.

“Quit fooling around, big guy, the cold air is coming in. Go outside. Outside. GET. OUT. THE. DOOR.” I stepped back to open the door wider for his ease of departure, and, “Aw… shit!” Literally.

I only thought the air was cold. Compared to the temperature of what I stepped in with my bare right foot, the outside air felt balmy. There wasn’t enough light to fully assess the situation, so I hobbled over to the light switch, on tip-toe so as not to make a bad situation worse. What stood out in the harsh light was an immense… no, a humongous… no, a gargantuan pile of slightly smushed dog-doo. To be quite frank, and to put things in perspective, if you ever saw the scene in the movie “Jurassic Park” where Laura Dern’s character finds a dying triceratops next to a pile of dino-dung, you have some idea of the magnitude of the pile I’m talking about. Of course, that’s minus what was stuck to my right foot.

Even more irritating was the fact said excrement was situated on a rug that had been in the house for less than 48 hours. I was not a happy pet owner as I cleaned off my foot, even less so after discovering the malodorous substance was also smeared into the cuff of my jeans. When you’re ankle deep in it, shit happens.

Raspberries! My favorite. I'll save a couple for you.

Personal hygiene taken care of, I proceeded to turn my attention to the rug. There was desperate scratching at the door. Watson was totally unfazed by the events that had unfolded, and was focused entirely on breakfast. It was the last straw. I went from irritated to outright livid.

“Knock it off!” I shouted. “The last thing I want to do is reload you guys! You’re both headed toward the ‘free-to-good-home’ route!”

Grumbling and swearing under my breath as I finished cleaning the rug, three visions passed through my head. The first was of a little, loveable ball of fuzz from a little over two years ago. The second was how ashamed he looked as I ordered him out the door - not since he was a little pup had Holmes committed such a transgression. The third vision was of how Holmes must have been walking in circles in front of the door, panicked about the unfortunate and inevitable. I could almost feel him thinking, “If I only had thumbs… if I only had thumbs… if I only… Uh-oh. Not good.”