Doggie Drama

First of all, let me just say thank you for all the encouraging comments on my last post.  It IS a funny story now (or it will be once the Deuce is here, healthy and alive), but I have decided to mail a letter to the first doctor we saw at the perinatal center, so that I can clearly explain why I was so upset.  I know my response was an overreaction, but in that moment, my stress level and my frustration level made it impossible for me to do anything but freak.the.hell.out.  The letter will explain that I wanted (and expected) him to go over the ultrasound measurements with me in detail, and that I also expected his tone to be courteous and professional.  I will not apologize for my meltdown, but I will let him know that I wish I could have expressed myself more calmly and I did not intend to cause such a scene.

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And now for the doggie drama:

So after the doctor appointment and work day yesterday, David and I were ready for bed at a 8:30pm (our lives are so excited).  We were in the bedroom, fluffing the featherbed (that is ACTUALLY what we were doing; that is not a euphemism for something else), when suddenly David let out a cry of dismay.

He had just stepped in dog poo.

You see, after weeks of 50 and 60 degree weather, Little Mac is not at all pleased with the cold front that has moved in.  In fact, she is sort of boycotting winter.  Which means instead of going outside, she CHOOSES to poo INSIDE the house.

I cleaned up poo in the guest room on Thursday morning, David cleaned it up on Friday morning.  He also thought she might have peed in the back room Friday morning.  We assumed she'd pooed during the night because the poop was not fresh.

There is NO REASON for this, beyond laziness/stubbornness.  She's not sick, the poo is perfectly normal-looking, her appetite is fine, she is otherwise completely normal.  Well, normal for her.  It's true that the dogs are left at home while we're at work, but that's never more than eight hours, and most days it's closer to six.  Plus, I don't actually think she's doing this during the day.  It seems that Mac doesn't want to bother going out in the cold in the middle of the night.  She COULD if she wanted to--she's notorious for waking us in the middle of the night, WAILING at the top of her lungs, which simply means that she wants to go outside.  And one of us always gets up to let her out.  So this new development is just one more example of her Super Special Issues.

However, I hadn't raised too much of a fuss about cleaning up her poo twice this week, because I wasn't SURE it had happened during the night, and I though maybe she REALLY had to go while we were at work, and that's not her fault.  I was willing to make excuses for her.  She is getting older (she'll be 12 in April), so maybe it was just an emergency.  Make that two emergencies.  Two days in a row.

But the poo that David stepped in last night was fresh.  And I was home from work on Friday by 3pm.  So I really think that she pooped in our bedroom, on David's side of the bed, while I was sitting on the couch reading, or on my laptop.  Which means that there was no EMERGENCY.  She just FELT LIKE taking a shit inside.

The thing you have to understand about Little Mac is that she has no shame whatsoever.  We were told at obedience classes that it doesn't do any good to scold dogs hours after they've done something naughty, because they don't understand why they're in trouble, yet they'll tuck their tails and slink away guiltily, just because your tone of voice (or volume) scares them.  But Little Mac NEVER slinks away or looks ashamed or backs down from a scolding, even if you catch her in the middle of doing something naughty (when we catch her on the furniture at Grandma's house and tell her to get down, she'll do it, but she'll give us the stink eye first, and growl the entire time).  

We theorize that Mac got brain damage when she was deprived off oxygen during her surgery to have her spayed.  If we're out in public with her, though, I'll lie and tell people that we rescued her and she was abused because that's the easiest way to explain her aggressive, anti-social attitude.  She hates strangers, she hates kids, she hates wheelchairs, she hates people with special needs.  She is nearly blind, and to be perfectly honest, she hates anyone who isn't offering her a treat.  I'm the ONLY person who can almost always pet her without her growling, and that's only because I've learned to read her moods and I always let her approach me first.  (Poor David gets the bad jobs--he has to make her do things she doesn't like, like take a bath, so she is suspicious of him.)

She will sometimes play rowdy with Cooper, chasing and wrestling for fun.  But she makes him nervous (even though he outweighs her by more than twenty pounds) because at a certain point, it's like a switch flips in her brain, and instead of having fun, she loses her cool, and suddenly she's going for blood.  (At this point, Cooper will run and hide behind David or me).  Sometimes Mac will playfully grab a sock or a dog toy and want to play, but a few seconds in to her tug-of-war game, she'll lose her shit, forget about the toy, and try to bite your hands off (seriously).  It's like her fight-or-flight switch is faulty, and it's constantly turned to FIGHT.  She'll never back down.

She has never been kicked by us, but I have tripped over her before.  At which point she turned around and attacked my foot.  Her fear is constantly translated into aggression.  As I like to tell her when she has these fits, it's a good thing she weighs eleven pounds, because if she were a German shepherd, she'd have to be put down.

Anyway, I'm just hoping this poop thing is a phase that will subside when the weather warms up, so I clean it up (flush the poop, spray the Bio-Kleen enzyme spray on the carpet--she never goes in the same place twice!) and lecture her in a stern voice while I'm doing it.  She watches me pick up her poop and flush it, with her big, unblinking brown eyes.  Unfazed, unconcerned, unashamed.  And I just sigh and let it go, because Mac has her issues and we just love her the best we can.

Wut the hell iz ur problem?  I poo where I pleez.

 But David (perhaps because he stepped in it?) was tired of putting up with her crap (haha pardon the pun).  So he picked up her poo in a wad of toilet paper, and walked over to her bed, where she was already curled up.  (She is VERY territorial and crazy about her beds, so we usually try not to approach her when she's sleeping).

He said, "Little Mac!  What is this?  SHAME on you!  You should be very ashamed!" and he shoved the poop-wad of toilet paper in her face.

Where MOST dogs would have slunk away guiltily, Little Mac did the opposite.  She growled ferociously at David, and then lunged angrily at the poop-wad.  She attacked the wad of toilet paper, tearing it out of David's hand, and flinging the poop around as she angrily shook her head from side to side.

I was just coming into the bedroom with the Bio-Kleen spray bottle, so I caught the tail-end of this act.  It was horrifying, but also hilarious.  David and I were both cracking up because Mac had attacked her own poop and was sputtering out a mouthful of poopy toilet paper.  We were laughing at her, but also completely DISGUSTED because lumps of poop had fallen back onto the floor, and onto her bed, and she was still growling and barking and generally freaking out.

So then (still laughing) I half-heartedly lectured David on how he should know better than to try to make Little Mac feel bad because she appears to be half honey badger.  He went to get more toilet paper for pick-up, and I heard Cooper scratching at the backdoor, so I went to let him out.

I was walking from the backroom toward the bedroom to help with clean up, when I heard Cooper growling and barking outside.  He will bark loudly at anyone who walks through our alley, but I could tell he was up close to the house, and he was doing more than announcing his presence. This was his SUPER ANGRY bark and growl--the one I usually hear when the neighbor-kid brings his dog over to visit at his mom's house.  (Cooper loves our neighbor dog, Lucky, but he HATES when Lucky has visitors).  I'd seen that dog over there earlier, so I went to the backdoor to yell at Coop and tell him to quit barking at Lucky and his friend.

But no.  Cooper was in our yard, and he was right by our deck.  I could tell he was freaking out about something, but even with the deck light on, I had a hard time seeing what was going on.  He was right up next to the deck, kind of in a shadow, and the angle made it hard to see from the door.  It looked like he was wrestling with a little white dog, except Mac was right next to me at this point.  And Cooper was NOT being playful.  He looked and sounded absolutely fierce.  It took me a split second to realize what was happening, and then I let out a little scream.

Cooper had cornered a POSSUM up against our deck, and they were FIGHTING.

David, in the middle of poop clean-up, had not come running when I screamed initially, so, not taking my eyes off of Cooper, I screamed again, "DAAAAAAAAAVID!  COOPER IS FIGHTING A POSSUM!"

Then he came racing in from the bedroom, wild-eyed and wielding the spray bottle of Bio-Kleen.  He flung open the backdoor, yelling for Cooper.  I stepped back, away from the door, with my arms crossed in front of my belly, just in case I might have to protect the Deuce from a RABID POSSUM.

Coop yelped and backed away from the possum.  I think he was probably scared.  I know that I was.  I was also glad they no longer appeared to be TOUCHING because OMG GROSS.  Cooper circled around the deck and came up the stairs on the other side when David called him again.  We got Cooper inside, slammed the door shut, and dead-bolted it.  (Because of those creepy almost-opposable thumbs that possums have!).  I frantically checked Cooper over, making sure he didn't have any bite marks or blood or anything on him.  He was totally fine, but kept sputtering and kind of coughing, which made me think he'd gotten a mouthful of possum fur, which made me want to vomit.

Meanwhile, the possum appeared kind of stunned and was just STANDING AROUND by our deck steps.  Like CHILLING.  Or possibly wondering WTF.  But not running away!  Or hiding!  Or playing dead.  Just standing around.

I was like, "Oh my god, do you think Cooper killed it?  Do you think it's just stunned?  Do you think it's going to die there?  What is it doing?  Do you think it lives under our deck?  That thing is bigger than Little Mac!  It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen!  What are we going to do?"  (Adrenaline causes me to chatter nervously).

So we all watched the possum through the back door (well, David and Cooper and I did.  Little Mac was totally unconcerned about her brother's encounter with POTENTIALLY RABID WILD LIFE and had gone back to bed).  Eventually, it sauntered across the yard and crawled behind our shed.  Cooper stopped coughing and I decided he needed a bath because OMG GROSS ENCOUNTER WITH POTENTIALLY RABID WILD LIFE.

Still guarding the door, lest the EVIL POSSUM return.

And then I called my mom because:  A doctor was mean to me this morning!  And I threw a screaming fit!  And then my dog pooped in the house!  And then she attacked her poop and flung it around the bedroom!  And then my other dog fought a possum!

It was just about more than I could take in one day.  I'm really hoping the rest of the weekend was totally uneventful.

I will say, though, that all the excitement seemed to get the Deuce worked up as well.  He/she was kicking like crazy when I got into bed, and David put his hand on my belly and even he could feel the movement!  I didn't think he'd be able to feel it from the outside, but I was lying so still, just in case, and then I felt a good kick right under David's hand and he said, "Was that it?"  And I smiled so big my face hurt.  I can't remember the last time I had such a huge smile on my face.

Which makes me think that the Deuce is probably a boy...  I mean who else would get so excited about poop and possum fights?