In caring for my aging golden retriever, who by human years is a venerable 94 years old, I have learned a lot about life. For two days, I have been trying to maintain control of a phenomenon over which I have no control. This is, quite simply, the status of my dog’s bowels and the day’s degree of doggie continence. This has profound influence over the start of my day and the assessed success of my day. When how many loads of laundry must be done and how much disinfectant must be used and how to hoist a 75-pound dog into the kitchen sink become the necessary logistics of one’s day, life becomes profoundly simple. You are either meeting the aging process gracefully, responsibly and caringly or you are not. When it comes to doggie diarrhea, there is only one way to approach, and that is with as much grace as you can muster as you wipe up shit, with the supreme caring which tells you why on God’s earth you are doing what you are doing—and above all, with thoroughness. How many things that we do can we say this about? This is not a bad way to live life.
From the Sordid to the Sublime
Today the fact that shit happens, happened to be good. There is a profound lesson here, if one can just think beyond the shit that happens to what happens after the shit. I went to the therapist. What happens in these sessions ranges from the shitty to the sublime. It has to do with life’s leashes, life’s commands, the joy of a full belly, the rare freedom of life’s free-range runs, and quite a lot to do with cleaning up messes. For the sake of clearing one’s mind and one’s conscience, I then set out to walk the younger dog of the two in my charge. For the sake of seeing another point of view, I went to the cliffs of Palos Verdes. I thereupon engaged in leash holding, leash releasing, deep breath cleansing, panting—and, horror of horrors, coping with unexpected doggie diarrhea. Surprisingly, I was quite unprepared for this. Standard pick-up procedures were rendered completely inadequate. Not only that, the dog now had front quarters that were the cutest thing on four legs, and hind quarters that were an offense against humanity. Although I was equipped with sunhat, cell phone and two twenty dollar bills, none of these items seemed adequate for the job.
This shit that happened then triggered an unplanned excursion in search of purity. My eyes cast around in search of a source of water. No hose in sight. No water. No water? What was that I had been gazing at with such awe? The greatest imaginable expanse of water—the Pacific Ocean. Salt water and sand seemed at the moment vastly more preferable in the back seat of my BMW than the extremely objectionable current alternative. So, I walked along the cliff path with a new objective—beach. As I neared the cove near the breath-taking, high-end resort, Terranea, reality hit. Assuredly, there was the cove. But unfortunately, the tide was out, and access to the cleansing waters was rocky. I considered a kayak conveniently placed on the sand, for mere moments, until the vision of balancing a 75-poung retriever on a plastic sliver cleared from my head. Turning back to the path, still redolent with the fragrance of feces, I simply walked without aim, hoping to spot evidence of a leaky irrigation system on the resort grounds. I looked longingly at a pool, and then shamed myself into dismissing the thought. Then, what to my delighted eyes did appear? A beachside shower! Knowing that I would become showered myself in the process, I selflessly took off as many of my clothes as would prevent arrest, and set about torturing my dog by holding her tail, and doing my best to aim water from on high, blowing in a brisk wind, on the hind quarters of my dog. Bravely, using an innovative saturate, smooth, drag and squeeze method, I managed to reasonably restore my dog’s dignity. I then gave my first heartfelt thanks for the 90-degree heat wave, and walked jauntily down the path, air-drying my pet as we went. Hunger was setting in, and I started fantasizing about lunch on a beachfront terrace. In a state of unrealistic dreaminess, I headed with my wet diarrhea dog to the nearest food source. Miracles of miracles, dogs were allowed on the “other side of the plexiglass”. Thank the heavens, the other side of the plexiglass held an unobstructed view of the vast Pacific, Catalina Island and even the Channel Islands and we were in sole possession of the entire territory. My dog was served ice water, I was served ice tea and salad, and diarrhea dog and I had a simply elegant time. A dolphin dove and swam in the sea in front of us, and the breeze and the sun bathed us in purity. Life is good, shit and all.
