That's why you don't give little dogs rawhide

Well there’s nothing like the second post of a blog to get you swimming in someone else’s life – mess and all – but, hey, this is life and sometimes it’s pretty darn messy, right? So I’ll tell you about how my day began yesterday. Warning – there’s dog poop involved so you may not want to read this while eating chocolate mousse.

It started like any other school day. I dragged myself out of bed and packed lunches, fed the dogs, and signed school papers all while Kate, my eleven-year-old,  told me the most recent developments in the last book of the Hunger Games trilogy.

Our yorkie, Izzy, who’s normally jumping all over us with excitement in the morning was sitting quietly in her bed, but I didn’t notice or care because I just wanted to be sure the girls made the bus so I didn’t end up driving anyone to school. But once the kids were out the door and I’d said farewell to Gary as he headed out to work, I noticed Izzy still sitting there. 

“What’s going on?” I asked her in a concerned voice (because I’m one of those people who talk to their dogs) and she gave me a squishy somewhat embarrassed face. I went to pick her up and realized that she smelled like poo. A quick check and OH MY HEAVENS there was a whole crazy mess going on under the tail! EEEEEEWWWW! I knew immediately that there must have been complications with the little rawhide stick I’d given her the day before. I’d read that little dogs aren’t supposed to eat rawhide but I was giving them to my two big dogs and Izzy looked at me with those big brown eyes and I thought “Well, okay, just this once.” But, now I was gonna pay for my error.

I ran to the bathtub holding her out in front of me like a . . . umm, well, like you would hold something covered in dog poo. Very far in front of me. I had to rinse, wash, drain and clean the tub, then repeat the process to finally get her clean. Then she dried by the heater while I scrubbed the tub with disinfectant and then jumped in the shower myself and scrubbed three times with Ivory. 

The whole mess brought back memories of similar episodes when the girls were babies. Emma, in particular, had a knack for having huge “blowouts” that involved poo shooting out of the top of her diaper and up her back. There are many days when I miss having a baby or a toddler around, but I have to say that I am relieved to be done with diapers and other potty adventures.

Anyhow, back to yesterday - by the time I was drying my hair it was 10:30 and I had only a half hour until I needed to leave for a meeting. Sadly, I chose this day to also use the one-application trial packet of hair oil that I’ve had lying on my bathroom counter for months. It claimed to be derived  from some sort of special Moroccan tree and promised to make my tresses shiny and flowy. My hair, however, ended up looking greasy and slightly damp . . . But I was out of time so off I went to my meeting, feeling greasy, still a little ill from the poo smell, and in need of a long nap.  Izzy was luckier - she got to stay home and snuggle back into bed (see photo above of a clean sleeping yorkie).