With every new pet that arrives at our house comes the phrase “Dad/honey, we’ll take care of it – you won’t have to do anything!” That’s my wife and daughter pleading with me to believe in the face of so much evidence to the contrary that THIS TIME they will take some responsibility for the care and feeding of the new arrival.
Before I continue, I feel compelled to provide some information that will be helpful to any Father/Husband/Partner out there whose family brings home a new pet without his approval. It boils down to 2 simple rules:
- Yes, you’re keeping the damn thing.
- When the dog shits on the carpet, you will be the last person left in the room when it’s discovered.
One evening before trash pickup day, I was doing my usual rounds. This includes scooping out the litter box one last time and disposing of all the little bags of cat poop and clumped urine I’ve collected during the week. These go into a trash bag along with all of the other trash from around the house. On this particular night, I was in a hurry because I had an appointment to get to. In my haste to get out the door, I unfortunately left the trash bag of cat poop and some other trash I had collected upstairs in my bedroom with the door open. The dog was also in the house.
Now, anyone who knows dogs understands that one of their favorite snacks is cat poop. When I returned from my errand, I went back upstairs to find shredded plastic, paper and used cat litter scattered around my carpeted bedroom. Of course all of the cat poop was missing. Yep, that dog went through multiple layers of plastic, trash and cat litter to get to the tasty treats inside. I diligently cleaned up the whole mess, vacuumed and got the carpet back to normal. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the family came home. We enjoyed a good laugh over my story, had some dinner and settled in the family room to watch some TV.
After a few minutes, the dog walked into the room and paused in front of the TV, belly heaving. I jumped to my feet, but before I could stop it, the dog had deposited the entire contents of her stomach – a quart-sized puddle of dog puke with large chunks of cat shit and smaller bits of litter. This was NOT funny.
I spent the next hour cleaning THAT mess up, my family laughing at me the whole time. I did a respectable job but there is a noticeable, 12-inch diameter stain that will never go away completely. So, I let it stand as a reminder to never again get distracted when fulfilling my destiny as man of the house and resident poop-scooper.
Guys, please learn from my mistake and don’t let this happen to you!