Dogs are gross. Good thing they are also cute, loyal, loving, warm (sometimes too warm), and furry. When I look around our house, I usually see a smattering of dog toys on the ground. Roscoe, our chocolate lab mix, loves his “babies” and carries them around until he finds something more interesting, usually dealing with food, abandoning his babies wherever he is at that time. Blackie leaves the toys to Roscoe. Roscoe’s favorite babies are Lambchops. We have had a variety of Lambchops over the years. Due to the selling of the lakehouse, we currently have three Lambchops. Roscoe loves to “clean” his babies. Well, we are not sure if he is cleaning them, or tasting them to determine if today is the day that he must find the squeaker, leaving their stuffing all over the house. From the “cleaning,” his Lambchops get gross. In fact, no one is allowed to buy white Lambchops anymore. We call them Tanchops, because his tongue is so brown from the nasty stuff he eats in the yard, like the goose poo buffet in the back, that the white Lambchops are turning tan. In an effort to reduce the gross factor, I have mandated that all future toys (including Dog Christmas presents) must be brown. I know that they are still carrying a fine layer of goose poo buffet, but at least I don’t have to see it. No more Tanchops!

Other offensive dog habits include, but are not limited to, rolling in excrement, stepping in excrement and trailing it in the house, taking dumps on the front path to the house, chasing skunks with its inevitable conclusion, sniffing crotches, sniffing other animals privates, licking us after eating excrement. Oh, this list is way too long, I have to abandon it. I am always concerned when my dogs run into the house too fast after letting them out. That means that they have either rolled in something, or they are bringing something into the house that is supposed to remain outside… like a dead (or not dead) animal. I am reminded of a story that Travis’ mom told me about their beloved golden retriever, Scout. This dog was Travis’ last childhood dog, overlapping with our first dog as adults. One night, in the middle of the night,  Scout was jumping around, getting her nose in Peggy’s face. Naturally, Peggy thought that perhaps Scout needed to go outside to relieve herself, so Peggy drug herself from bed and let Scout out. Not taking very long in the yard in the dark, Scout sprinted past Peggy into the house and back to her perch on the floor beside the bed. Peggy went back to bed and didn’t think anything of it until she was treated to a barefooted squish into newly thawed roadkill on the floor of her bedroom first thing in the morning. Scout was a smart dog and knew that the only way she could enjoy any time with that precious roadkill was to sneak it into the house under the cover of darkness. 

And so goes life with our fur babies. They are there to greet us and love us unconditionally. They are also apparently there to eat poo and bring roadkill into our house. And yet, my love of my dogs far outweighs their downside. And so, in this Christmas season, let us hope that our dogs don’t bring us a “present” from the yard and that all our Lambchops are brown… as in purchased brown. 

Have a great humpday everyone!