I usually bring two dogs from the yard into my cabin at night. A giant yearling with extraordinarily poor proprioception, named Dwight, and a gentle, cock-eared 4-year-old named Bull. We’re all learning how to have inside manners together. The other night, Dwight earned himself a night in the dog yard by galavanting while simultaneously crapping liquid when we were on a ski. As I unhooked Bull, I looked over to Dwight: “Sorry buddy, but you’re covered in poop. It’s a warm night. You’ll be ok.” — A balmy 10F.
My girlfriend, Sam, was over with her own dog, Gibbs. Three dogs in the cabin for the night, nothing unusual.
5:30AM, Valentine's Day, my day off. The sound of a pacing dog is followed by the sound of a urinating dog.
“Ah yes, it’s always lovely to wake up to the sound of urination,” I say. This is not our first rodeo.
I begin to get out of bed when Sam shines a light onto the situation.
“Holy. Shit,” she consecrates.
I blink and look out, “That’s not urination.”
It is very calm in the beginning moments. We are assessing a situation of proportions here: In a valiant effort to be a good dog, Bull began at the back door of the cabin. But he didn’t shit still. Floodgates wide open he figured he should maybe try for the front door. When that didn’t work he circled the coffee table, splattering all the way. There is hardly dry land left. It is the Brown Lake.
Step 1: Catch the dogs. Sam already has Gibbs by the collar. Gibbs, a 7-month-old wild-woman, is not happy to be restricted. There’s an exciting thing happening and it smells sanctifyingly, god awful. It smells like if there were a fan around somewhere shit definitely hit it.
Step 2: Open a goddamn door, quickly.
But wait.
My own darling dog, Charlotte, came to me as a puppy with the name Harlot. “Because she loves everybody,” the cowboy who gave her to me said. Right now, she’s in the full swing of heat and proving him right. Charlotte has chosen Wingman in the dog yard to be the father of her first litter. Wingman has graciously accepted this offer. It is forbidden love. At this point, preventing the magnetism between them requires physical restraint. I think it was Romeo who said, “It is the east, and Wingman is the sun.” And as I shove open the frozen door to the morning darkness, the sun is out for Charlotte. I have her by the collar as she tries to scramble out, quoting more Shakespeare, “But father! My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep!”
All the dogs are doing their best to try and step in as much shit as possible.
“Bull! Bull. Come here, buddy. Come on. It’s ok” — He’s a little nervous because I said his name too sharply and he’s a sensitive guy.
I snag him by the collar, get him out the door, and shut it.
The stench.
I open the door back up.
Bull is standing right there. “Tucker,” he says, “it’s -30F out, let me back in.”
“Sorry,” I say, and close the door on him.
I hopscotch my way over to the window with the thermometer outside of it. I scratch off a layer of ice in order to see out. Bull isn’t lying, it’s -30F. Even with the doors closed the cabin is cold enough that the poop puddles have begun to freeze on the floor.
Gibbs is now in a crate, begging us to let her out so she can help. Crying and pawing, she is insistent that she will be a good helper. Charlotte is looking forlorn after being sternly told to stay put on the bed.
Take a deep breath, gag.
I start boiling water in whatever I can find, it’s clear we’ll need a lot.
Here, I originally wrote a beautifully descriptive paragraph. It went into great, poetic detail on the cleaning process of the cabin. But when I finished writing and re-read it, I realized that it might be a little much for me to liken a portion of Bull’s bowel trouble to the type of chili slop a lunch lady would dump on your plate. You know, that kind of chili slop that hasn’t been stirred enough? That kind with a questionable, semi-solid mass in the middle of it — like something might have fallen into the chili pot a long time ago and is in the process of dissolving, or maybe even coming alive. And I figured I could spare the detail that picking up such a semi-solid mass with anything but a spoon inside of a chili bowl is nearly impossible on account of how slippery it is and that when you inevitably drop said slippery mass it makes a noise that has the physical power to literally punch you in the stomach. I also thought no one really wanted to know that when I grabbed the first pot of hot water to pour onto the freezing puddles of crap, I didn’t take into account the residual cheesy potato meal it had in it from the night before. And that as I poured the steam rose, just wafted right up into our faces. And we watched as the particulate vapor of cooked dog diarrhea — mixed with a flavor of cheesy potato and spicy sausage — fumigated everything around it. As it turns out, you can witness smell.
Then we cleaned it and it was all very romantic. The end — at least that should be the end.
Since I hadn't been out to the yard on my day off, I texted the group later that night: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how liquid is Bull’s poop?”
Ryne responded with a joke about Bull-shit.
Simon sent me a video of soft-serve ice cream.
“I can deal with soft-serve ice cream,” I thought. “Plus, I’ll just wake up when he starts pacing like last time and I’ll let him out. No problem.”
Well, just as you can witness smell, it also turns out that you can smell hindsight.
