OK, folks – I don’t mean to be all righteous, but seriously: I’m a dog saint…aaaaand…don’t envy me. As evidence, this post is crude but entirely based in fact. Enjoy at your own peril.
My dog, Maddie, is walking and running (more like galumphing), since the beginning of her FCE ordeal. She temporarily lost use of the back half of her body but has made incredible strides back to, well – striding.
And she’s utterly unperturbed when her hips occasionally slip and slam on the ground. She just keeps going in her new normal.
But I desperately hope for her to regain control of her bladder and bowels.
Dear doggy lord: my Maddie is walking adequately. I’ll trade further progress in the leg region for any control in her nether regions.
We’ve had to “express” her bladder, otherwise, she grows a 3-inch balloon in her gut. We put our fingers behind her ribs and squeeze back and in. This triggers her back legs to shoot straight out while urine sprays out of her with the force of a super-soaker. Not difficult, merely annoying. And a lot of splashing.
But nothing’s as bad as the poop.
Before walking returned, the poor dog soiled herself. Bowels emptied onto her tail and legs and she’d try to drag her paralyzed hind-end away. Daily baths were the norm. (Difficult with a dog who couldn’t stand.) We were all miserable.
Since walking, Maddie still lacks “function” control. Sometimes (usually at about 4AM) it seems she feels something and thinks, “Oh, crap. Oh, no. Oh crap, I think I’m gonna…”
She stands, takes two steps, and then: plop. Another step, another plop. We’ve surrounded her bed with wee-wee pads, so her scat is caught before she scats.
Then she shamefully hides from us in a corner.
The commotion wakes us, but over the past few weeks, we’re resigned to it. “Oh, well. The dog lost it, again.” So we clean doggy-doo by the light of cell phones.
For a month I lined up Ellison’s rubber alphabet tiles down our hallway for Maddie to walk without slipping. Because she stuck to that path, a few times she left presents along the tiles.
One night before turning in, I went to check on the sleeping boys, and I stepped in a pile. I was barefoot.
I slipped, smearing ordure along the P, Q, and R letters, at which point the tiles separated, and my foot further smeared feces on the wood floor.
My kids’ rubber tiles running through my apartment to give my dog a grip and not slip.
See the bloody paw prints on the tiles?
I semi-sighed/semi-laughed. I wretched as I cleaned.
This wasn’t the first barefoot nastiness. I’m always the one who steps in it.
Recently, I started “expressing” her bowels. (Yeah: I’m a dog saint.)
Imagine, if you will, a grown man squatting behind his dog, squeezing her haunches until her tail pops up and her anus starts to pucker.
At this point, I’m (sadly) happy for action. It means less mess in the apartment. Since it’s now sub-zero in the Northeast, and I squat mere inches away from her, I actually see steam escaping her butt.
The height of indignity is when I force my dog to fart in my face. It happens almost daily.
We hardly react to this, anymore. It’s become de rigueur for the kids.
“Did Maddie go poopy again, Daddy?”
“Yes. Don’t touch it, please. I’ll clean it after I make your toast.”
One time, a babysitter sat on the couch reading to Ellison when my younger kid delivered something. It was poop.
To this point (knock on wood) Maddie’s had no diarrhea. So clearing the crud is quick and easy and it’s easier for me to say “I’m a dog saint.” Sometimes we scrub with chemicals, sometimes we just wipe with a paper towel. We’re so resigned to it now, we just shrug and keep on keeping on.
I haven’t cleaned with bare hands. That’s probably next.
We ask every visitor if the apartment smells like dog droppings.
They all say “No, not at all.”
I hope they’re not shitting us.
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A version of this post was previously published on ecknox.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Gavin Lodge