Gone To The Dogs

The moral of today’s story is, “Don’t get in too big of a hurry.”  Sometimes being in a rush will create a bigger mess than taking your time.  That being said, if you are squeamish or have a weak stomach, do not read beyond the warning line.  I’m talking to you specifically, Rissa.

***  WARNING:  GROSS COMMENTARY TO FOLLOW  ***

Late Thursday evening, I set about the task of giving the boys a bath before bedtime.  Normally, we can throw them both in the tub, let them splash around a while, then clean them up and get ready for bed.  However, with Griffin’s head injury and the glue holding it all together, we can’t get that portion of his head wet.  So that means no splashing and no little brother in the tub with him, since Gage excels at getting water into places it doesn’t need to be.

Gage chose this time to walk over where Tamara was working on the computer, stand beside her, and begin downloading a deposit into his diaper.  My wife seized the moment to get our youngest on the potty while I maneuvered Griffin into a position where I could wash his hair.  Gage sat and sat, but didn’t really do anything, so mommy let him down to come in the bathroom and get ready for his turn in the tub.  She didn’t put a diaper on him since that would be just another thing I’d have to take off to get him cleaned up.  That turned out to be a BIG mistake.

Unbeknownst to me, our darling child came in to our bathroom where I was up to my elbows in shampoo, stood beside me, and finished pushing his poop out all while being naked from the waist down.  You might think my first clue of something wrong would be the malodorous fumes creeping across the bathroom, but you’d be wrong.  What tipped me off was the fact that my dog was furiously licking something off the tile right next to me.

Things started happening very quickly, at this point.  Gage began to whine and run out of the bathroom into our carpeted bedroom.  I realized that the mass of brown waste my dog was eating shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be on our floor.  Holding Griffin still in the tub, I turned to see my youngest trailing into our room with a mass of poop running down the back of his right leg.  I screamed.  Loud.

“TAMARA, GET IN HERE!  GET HIM!”

In a testament to grace under pressure, my pregnant wife whisked our youngest off the floor and got him back into our tiled bathroom without dropping a single pooplet on our carpet.  The damage in the bathroom was a different story.  It was on the tile, it was on the towels, it was on the rug in front of the tub, and it was still running down the back of Gage’s leg.

All the while, the dog sat happily munching away.  It turns my stomach to think about.  She was quickly sent to her crate so we could deal with the aftermath.

A lot of wipes and a lot of toilet paper later, Gage was finally clean enough to get in the tub.  In retrospect, I’m glad he did it before the bath instead of after or during.  Still, it’s a situation I’d have preferred to avoid all together.

If there’s one other thing we might be able to take away from this whole situation, it would have to be this:  Don’t ever let my dog kiss you in the face…or anywhere else, for that matter.