Pup Ponders Pooping The last week in this month has been declared "National Scoop the Poop Week." I cannot mention this without referring to a friend of mine who collects arcane celebrations. It was he who made me aware of National Cheeseball Day, which I gratefully embraced. This column is my way of returning the favor.
About Scoop the Poop Week I am less enthusiastic. First off, why does poop get a week while cheeseballs only get a day? Cheeseballs may not be the nation's favorite snack--that would be nachos--but they are certainly more popular than dog waste. The answer must be that the poop lobby was muscular enough to take over 1/52 of the year, whereas cheeseball enthusiasts were cornered into accepting a mere day, possibly even a weekday, during which their special contribution to America is celebrated. Doesn't seem fair to me. For one thing, if your cheeseball or your pup's poop ends up on the rug, both events are considered minor household tragedies of roughly equal significance.
We celebrated National Cheeseball Day around these parts by buying a cheeseball, naturally. What's left of it is still in the fridge, sealed in a baggie, with bits of stale Doritos still embedded in it, snapped off there like tiny, fried cornmeal knife tips when the cheeseball celebrating got really crunk. Scooping the poop is an ongoing project, because we have a dog every day. To acknowledge Scoop the Poop Week, I read a smarmy Yahoo piece entitled "Fact and Fiction about Dog Poop." This article was one of those articles that blithely informs you that everything you thought you knew about some subject is wrong. Nobody likes hearing that. You wonder why these articles are popular, then you realize that they enable you to got tell somebody else that everything they think they know is wrong. Everybody likes doing that.
The article tells us that the best way to dispose of Fido feces is to flush them down the toilet. To this I say: Not happening. It requires enough careful attention to bag the stuff in the first place without getting any on your fingers. I am not taking the still-warm bag inside, unwrapping it like it contained some kind of poo-perfumed soap and lobbing it into the tranquil waters of my American Standard. I usually settle for what Yahoo calls the second-best method of ridding the earth of my dog's nature calls—I toss the bag in the trashcan.
And I admit I only do that when the dog poops someplace obvious, like the neighbor's sidewalk or a tennis court. When my dog deposits his duty on bare earth, especially bare earth near the cover of convenient bushes, I leave it there, to become part of nature's grand, poop-based cycle.
Yahoo lashes out at me for doing this. It informs me that feces from carnivorous animals have to be mixed with egg shells and grass clippings and allowed to break down over time before they will nourish the tender shoots of spring. I am skeptical about this, since carnivores of every stripe have been pooping on earth ever since they finished digesting their first satisfying, meaty meal and plant life seems to be holding its own nonetheless. I grow even more skeptical when I think about myself mixing a big batch of dog doo and eggshells as part of my Saturday chores every week and know that feeling the warm glow of being insanely more earth-conscious than everybody else I know would not be reward enough for me to do that. I would watch the game instead, and after a couple close plays would forget all about my Chihuahua poisoning the soil, day after day.
Where's the rest of that cheeseball?
About Scoop the Poop Week I am less enthusiastic. First off, why does poop get a week while cheeseballs only get a day? Cheeseballs may not be the nation's favorite snack--that would be nachos--but they are certainly more popular than dog waste. The answer must be that the poop lobby was muscular enough to take over 1/52 of the year, whereas cheeseball enthusiasts were cornered into accepting a mere day, possibly even a weekday, during which their special contribution to America is celebrated. Doesn't seem fair to me. For one thing, if your cheeseball or your pup's poop ends up on the rug, both events are considered minor household tragedies of roughly equal significance.
We celebrated National Cheeseball Day around these parts by buying a cheeseball, naturally. What's left of it is still in the fridge, sealed in a baggie, with bits of stale Doritos still embedded in it, snapped off there like tiny, fried cornmeal knife tips when the cheeseball celebrating got really crunk. Scooping the poop is an ongoing project, because we have a dog every day. To acknowledge Scoop the Poop Week, I read a smarmy Yahoo piece entitled "Fact and Fiction about Dog Poop." This article was one of those articles that blithely informs you that everything you thought you knew about some subject is wrong. Nobody likes hearing that. You wonder why these articles are popular, then you realize that they enable you to got tell somebody else that everything they think they know is wrong. Everybody likes doing that.
The article tells us that the best way to dispose of Fido feces is to flush them down the toilet. To this I say: Not happening. It requires enough careful attention to bag the stuff in the first place without getting any on your fingers. I am not taking the still-warm bag inside, unwrapping it like it contained some kind of poo-perfumed soap and lobbing it into the tranquil waters of my American Standard. I usually settle for what Yahoo calls the second-best method of ridding the earth of my dog's nature calls—I toss the bag in the trashcan.
And I admit I only do that when the dog poops someplace obvious, like the neighbor's sidewalk or a tennis court. When my dog deposits his duty on bare earth, especially bare earth near the cover of convenient bushes, I leave it there, to become part of nature's grand, poop-based cycle.
Yahoo lashes out at me for doing this. It informs me that feces from carnivorous animals have to be mixed with egg shells and grass clippings and allowed to break down over time before they will nourish the tender shoots of spring. I am skeptical about this, since carnivores of every stripe have been pooping on earth ever since they finished digesting their first satisfying, meaty meal and plant life seems to be holding its own nonetheless. I grow even more skeptical when I think about myself mixing a big batch of dog doo and eggshells as part of my Saturday chores every week and know that feeling the warm glow of being insanely more earth-conscious than everybody else I know would not be reward enough for me to do that. I would watch the game instead, and after a couple close plays would forget all about my Chihuahua poisoning the soil, day after day.
Where's the rest of that cheeseball?
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