Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Poop!

OH my ever-pooping goodness.

I tried a new dog food. Paid $60 for this premium bag of wild bison and elk or something which had no grain. The dogs ate it, but weren't entirely thrilled. In two weeks they got F.A.T. and I halved their portions. And their poops quadrupled, quintupled, multiplied exponentially.

I mentioned this to Bill one day. It was 110 with 200% humidity and I crawled in on my belly after having picked up the yard. "This new food makes too much poop," I panted, just before passing out from heat prostration.

Well, yesterday while I was at work, Bill picked up the yard. Then he drove to the dog food store and bought a 40 pound bag of the old dog food. The kind that produces little poops. He took the half-bag of mega poop food ($30 worth) and put it in the back corner of the pantry.

I love Bill.

Yesterday was a marathon at work. I left the house at 6:35 AM and got home at 8:30 PM. I live 20 blocks from the hospital, so the 'commute' is 5 minutes. The rest is work. It is so nice to come home to Bill and the dogs and the latex mattress topper. Oh how I looked forward to sleep. I had decided it would be a wonderful idea to have an anxiety attack at four in the morning before going to work. I haven't done that since the winter. Some chirping beeping noise from my computer plug in thingy woke me up and my brain went wacko.

You know, you wake up and your brain starts rapid firing bombardment of everything you've done wrong in your life since you were four and you scooped out a big chunk of your sister's birthday cake and ruined the whole party? It was all your fault and you should be ashamed of yourself. And the more you freak out about getting back to sleep because you are facing a Very Long Day, the more you can't fall asleep and then you remember the time...

So last night I was soooo looking forward to sleep. Only as I brushed my teeth and tucked the dogs in, I heard an unmistakable chirp. The dreaded smoke detector chirp. I said a Very Bad Word. Bill got the ladder (we have stinkin' 11 foot ceilings) and got the smoke detector down, setting off the whole house ear piercing alarms only twice - a new record! Oh thank you honey, I said.

Bill went to his study to read. Chirp.

It's still chirping, I said.

He took it into the guest room at the other end of the house. Chirp.

The room is still chirping, I said. Chirp.

We examined all of the possibilities. The attic? No way, there isn't any attic above our room. I, the Queen of Acrophobia, climbed the ladder to see if the bald wires were somehow chirping. No.

We listened. Chirp.

Ah! It seemed to be coming from the corner where Bill's out of season clothes were stored in Tupperware bins. We tore through every bin, every pants pocket. Chirp.

Nothing.

Chirp.

We went into his dresser drawers. Finally. Finally. Finally!!!! In the back of his junk drawer was an old smoke detector. Chirp.

Bill calmly removed the old battery from the thing. I really wanted to stomp it, hit it with a hammer, throw it through the bedroom window, smashing it to bits. I actually wanted to bite it.

Instead I climbed in bed. I had a little trouble falling to sleep because I was so enjoying the sounds of the dogs' quiet breathing, feeling the extraordinary comfort of lying down, my legs and feet and shoulders on fire, most of all the sweet nearness of Bill.

hug your hounds

19 comments:

  1. Sorry but I really had to laugh. Love your sense of humor. Sometimes all one can do is laugh. This would have made a good sitcom show. Hope things get calmer. At least you won't need to spend as much on the food - & the blessing is smaller poops. In one end & out the other. Keeps us hoomans busy.
    Ernie,Sasha,Chica's Mom

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  2. You wanted to bite it Patience? You HAVE been around dogs for awhile haven't you?

    The pressure to buy all-meat dog food is pretty high. Our vet says Science Diet is fine, despite the criticism it receives from some folks who don't like the grain in it. But dogs are traditionally omnivorous creatures, so I don't really buy the all-meat argument, and it is so terribly expensive if you have multiple large dogs.

    I hope you sleep well tonight. Bill is a hero.

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  3. Why do those things only start chirping at night. Monty used to have a nervous breakdown if he heard one and I'd wake up in the middle of the night with eight pounds of trembling, drooling dog on my head.

    Morgan still gets all upset, so we try to remember to replace batteries twice a year. One of us takes the dogs outside while the other one changes batteries.

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  4. Oh, I so needed this laugh! Thank you so much, Patience!

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  5. OMD - Teka is pretty calm (for a Jack Russell) but the smoke detector chirp sets her off Big Time! So does the little beep the security system makes when you set it. So when we set the security system (which is not as often as it should be set) we lock up the house, we all get into bed, we wait until Teka is settled into her space UNDER the covers and UP AGAINST the favored butt or set of knees. Then we wait some more until we hear her snore. Then whoever is not the favored human that night sneaks very carefully out of the bedroom, goes to the alarm station by the front door, and sets the alarm as quietly as possible! Then sneak back down the hall and into bed. So, the reason it seldom gets set is not just the hassle, but the fact that two old humans go to sleep much faster than one JRT.

    Don't tell the bad guys please.

    Gussie

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  6. OMD - Teka is pretty calm (for a Jack Russell) but the smoke detector chirp sets her off Big Time! So does the little beep the security system makes when you set it. So when we set the security system (which is not as often as it should be set) we lock up the house, we all get into bed, we wait until Teka is settled into her space UNDER the covers and UP AGAINST the favored butt or set of knees. Then we wait some more until we hear her snore. Then whoever is not the favored human that night sneaks very carefully out of the bedroom, goes to the alarm station by the front door, and sets the alarm as quietly as possible! Then sneak back down the hall and into bed. So, the reason it seldom gets set is not just the hassle, but the fact that two old humans go to sleep much faster than one JRT.

    Don't tell the bad guys please.

    Gussie

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  7. Awake at 4AM remembering every bad thing I ever did? Lying awake panicked because I have to get up in 2 hours and need sleep. Yep, been there, done that. The poop thing, not so much. I woulda ditched the feed immediately after the first sign of excessive poopiness. :-)

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  8. you are a trooper - and Bill is a hero - no doubt about either of those statements - hope you have a day off soon - sounds like it would be good for everyone


    Gayle and the whippets

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  9. None of my business but I am wondering why you are working such crazy hours. OK I said it. (I still work full time too..)

    Having said that, it is nice to see you blogging again. Your voice has been greatly missed.

    What dog food has caused the big poop?

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  10. Poor you...hope no more chirping after this. What brand of dog food is that? LS bought me a new brand recently and it made me poop a lot too hee...She's going to switch me to another brand after this.

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  11. Poor you...hope no more chirping after this. What brand of dog food is that? LS bought me a new brand recently and it made me poop a lot too hee...She's going to switch me to another brand after this.

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  12. Here's a silly early am tale:

    This morning, bag in hand, walking Jakey, I was elated when he decided to produce right on time. Slightly distracted though by a runner and another woman and dog passing by, I looked away, and then bent over to pick up the pile. But suddenly I felt something cold through the bag in my hand -- and when I looked, the something was the wrong color. Clearly slghtly aged stuff of another breed.

    What would you do? I did the only thing possible -- I cast the wrong pile aside and reached down again to retrieve the warm mass of the right color that belonged to my dog.

    Moral of the tale: It is indeed a wise woman who knows her own dog's poop.

    Wirey woofs from the Barkies!!

    Joan

    PS: It is for good reason that we call the stretch of grass alongside this road "Poop Alley!"

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  13. Francarrich from WWJuly 16, 2010 at 11:20 AM

    The first time our smoke alarm battery started beeping it was about 3.00.a.m. & in a house of 2 adults, 2 children & a dog I was the only one who woke up. It took me a while to work out what it was & then I had to go downstairs & try to silence it without waking everybody else up!

    A good many years later, when I was living alone in the house I was woken by an intermittent 'beep'. I thought I heard it but then silence until it did it again. Eventually deciding it must be a newer type of smoke alarm down in my workshop I went off downstairs but couldn't find where the noise came from. Back upstairs again, snuggled back under the bedclothes & the blasted beep went off again. Eventually I found out that it was my mobile phone, which is normally turned off 'cos I rarely use it, beeping to tell me that I'd missed a call, which turned out to be somebody in India who didn't want me at all!

    Bloomin' beeps!

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  14. I so identify with this. I hate my new job but I love the check -- so conflicted and tired of being tired. Thank goodness for a physician who understands menopausal insomnia and isn't worried I'll turn into Elvis (or Michael Jackson). And that &*(^% beep sets a couple of mine off, too. That is when I am glad the old dogs don't hear so well anymore. They still hear the thunder, but at least they are spared the dreaded beep.

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  15. My version is more of waking up at 2am knowing that I only have 3 more hours no 2 more no 30 minutes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and then BLAM the alarm goes off!! WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ALL OF US!!! Lvoe PL2 and A+A

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  16. Lord I hate when things chirp at night LOL. Good you found the sorce.

    LOL you really crack me up. In that new food did it have veggies too or just meat. I've found that dogs who have a mix of meat and veggies have less poopage :) I fed Wellness food when I had dogs. They did great on it (only food my overly sensative rottie tolerated).

    What it comes down to is if your babies are doing well with old food then stick to it LOL :)

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  17. I have a new appreciation for nurses. They are saints that are going straight to heaven. Mothers follow.

    I hope some day to find someone as wonderful as Bill.

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  18. Thinking of you stretched across the floor at the end of each day.... Those of us who have needed a good nurse send our appreciation your way.
    Gentle hugs...
    Kathy and Flynn

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  19. we buy very cheap but very good sheepdog food in a sack - it is the only thing that doesn't give dave the squits!

    the birthday cake thing rang a chord with me - i dug into a lovely chocolate cake that my mum had made for my birthday when i was about 5 and still feel awful about it to this day...

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