Third time's the charm

In my last post, I mentioned that Steve and I only relax when Dionne has pooped within the last 5 minutes. This morning, I learned that's a mistake.

She has continued to be angelic about sleeping through the night, but this morning she began to moan and yip a little before 6, so Steve took her outside. Upon his return he reported that she had pooped with great urgency, spending no time at all stalling and sniffing. "She appears to have heard that there are poop-production quotas," he said. "And she's behind."  He put her in the kennel in his office and returned to bed. Around 6:30, I got up to feed both dogs their breakfasts.  Dionne acted ecstatic as I filled the bowls, and she dove into hers when I set it down in the kennel. But less than a minute later, with the puppy chow only half consumed, she was whining and barking. Puzzled, but thinking of the lessons of just yesterday, I took her to the lower yard where she immediately deposited a second large pile.

With that prelude, I felt cheerful as I set off on what I thought would be an hour-long walk up Mt. Soledad and over to my neighborhood coffee shop. With Tucker on his leash and Dionne in her stroller, we started down the block. I felt a little disappointed to see Dionne once again standing up and looking over the front of the stroller, looking for all the world as if she were thinking of jumping out. As we started up the hill, her agitation increased, and she began yowling like she did the first time I took her out in the stroller last week. I told her to be quiet and calm down. But I didn't understand what she was signaling until she backed up against the side of the carriage (as if trying lift her little rear end up high enough so that she could keep the stroller interior clean) and pooped for a third time. Those of us who become caught up in the bizarre subculture of obsessive puppy-defecation monitoring develop keen eyes for assessing the firmness of the production, and I can assure the world: this was NOT diarrhea.

What followed put me in a foul mood.  She'd gotten it on the sides and fleece of the carriage, and I got it on my bare hand. I returned home; abandoned my workout.

"Now," Steve noted, "she probably won't poop again for another day." Yeah. Right. 

The picture of relaxation (after all the excitement of the morning.)