Warning: Canine bodily functions are discussed! Not recommended for wussies with delicate sensibilities!

If anyone needs proof that I can on occasion control myself, and even be kind---I need only point out that my dog Maddie is still living.

When I moved to my current apartment, I knew I'd have to put up with the occasional clean-up. I have crazy work shifts, I'm away from home for more than 12 hours, and that's just too long to expect an aged spazzhund to hold it.

Leaving Maddie outside with shelter & water was a failed experiment. She wailed & yowled & carried on as only a years-deaf dog can, with unsettling variances in tone & tremendous volume. I'm certain everyone in a 2-mile radius thought I was flaying her. She is far, far more gracious about being left in the apartment, and since she's old I'm willing to accommodate her preference.

Happily, there is plenty of room in the kitchen. I decided that there would be no remonstration or punishment in any way for Maddie having to do what comes natural--so long as it remained in the kitchen. Maddie did not find this condition acceptable. I'm not willing to accommodate that, however, so I blockade her in the kitchen when I leave home.

So yes, as expected, there have been several reminders that elderly canine bowels & bladder do indeed still function. She feels guilty about it every time. I'm hoping that she'll realize that the only reaction she gets from me is being sent outside so I can clean up the floor without her there to 'help.'

So it hasn't really been an issue, until this past week. Maddie has come down with a case of flack-ass*, resulting in a more challenging & lengthly clean-up, not to mention smellier. Which was irritating, but still bearable.

Until 2 days ago when I came home earlier than expected, literally catching Maddie in the act of walking out of my bedroom as I entered the apartment. This is in direct violation of 2 rules:
1) When Kwan's not home, Maddie must be in the kitchen, and
2) The only bedroom spot Maddie is allowed in is her large & spacious crate

The dog knew she was busted. I knew she knew she was busted. However, I had no idea just how busted she was, yet. Maddie, knowing full well that she had also violated a third rule, panicked & made a run for it. Right out the front door. She went about 4 feet & stopped. I know my dog; she wasn't going to run further away, but at the same time she didn't want to return home & possibly face the consequences of whatever the hell else she had done. Neighbors were all for corralling her. I just pointed to the door. My dog the drama-queen slowly slinked her way over to me & did her best deprecating "Please-o-please don't beat me like you've done so many-many times before" acting schtick that she reserves for when she has an audience, culminating in an agonized yelp when I hooked my finger through her collar. 9_9

Once I got her inside, I was going to banish Maddie to her cage & leave her alone as punishment ("time-out" with no attention is probably the worst thing you can do to an attention-whore canine). But she was desperately reluctant to go into my room, first refusing to go in under her own power then & pulling back when I took the collar.

Then I smelled why.

Not only had the dog shoved her way past the kitchen blockade, but she had left behind what for the sake of the squeamish I'll refer to as canine-lovin'. In my carpeted bedroom. And not just in my bedroom, but in the walk-in closet. That damned dog had flack-assed herself a viscous runny stench-ridden canine-lovin' river of Jackson Pollock proportions. Where I keep my clothes.

Several buckets of suds & Odo-ban, a couple loads of laundry, plus many sticks of incense later, the closet, carpet, & clothes are non the worse for it. And neither is the dog, who did not did not get a single swat or so much as hollered at, and was only banished outside for about 4 hours while I cleaned the rancid mess up--something she was very happy to do.

So that's one reason why I should be elected for sainthood.

Here's another: Maddie herself also needed washing, due to getting her own canine-lovin' on her tail & bushy pantaloons. I took her to a very nice self-wash dogwash, and she was treated to a long-overdue scrubbing.

So to get revenge, Maddie's shedding out like crazy. I brush her 3 times daily, which results in enough fur to make myself another good-sized dog each time, and there's still not end to it. It's everywhere! Whenever she shakes, it's like a cloud of fur has enveloped her. The fur-cloud then takes on a life of its own, fleeing to the ceiling, my bed, the couch, the top of the 'fridge, my keyboard, and of course the floor. I got home from work & there were great thundering herds of black-haired tumbleweeds rolling all over the kitchen.

All I really have to combat them with is my wimpy little electric broom. That & sweeping just seems to break up the furballs to distribute the hairs more evenly. Gawd, I miss my vacume cleaner (in storage)! I miss having a dog with no undercoat! For most of her life in Ohio, Maddie had no undercoat as she plowed into & through snow drifts & dug her why through ice so she could tempt hyperthermia by swimming in the middle of winter--why the hell does Maddie have a thick undercoat now that we're in freakin' Tucson?!

There is a solution to both the ass-flack and the shedding, but I won't do it, so I think I deserve a medal.

Visitor: "Hey Kwan--what is that over there? It looks like a dog wrapped in duct tape with a butt-plug glued into its ass."

Me: "No, it's a new smart robot. I ordered it from the internets."




*Fear not, Maddie seems fine otherwise. No temperature, definitely no loss of appetite, she's pretty much the same as ever, except for shooting stuff out her rear. I recently sprayed the pricker-burr weeds in the yard, and I suspect Maddie got some weed-killer in her system while nomming on bird-poop (bird feeders have been removed to test this theory).