My dog loves horseshit. Otherwise she’s a wonderful dog…nearly perfect in every way. A pure yellow lab, Sadie fetches a tennis ball with enthusiasm, obeys basic commands like “sit, stay, and come.” She doesn’t bark at night, avoids digging in my yard, doesn’t chew much now that she’s 2 years old, and is eternally cheerful. But she has a “thing” for horseshit.
About a quarter mile down the road from our home in the country we have some neighbors who raise a half dozen horses. When we let the dog out of our gated property for a run she blasts out of the gate like a Patriot Missile targeting an enemy rocket and homes in on the horse pen. In seconds she skids to a stop amid a cloud of dust and gravel and crawls under the fencing in order to browse the buffet that the horses were so kind to stock with exotic varieties. Ya got yer green balls of horseshit – with pieces of undigested straw sticking out of them. Then ya got yer brown mushy piles of horseshit that look like a Frenchman’s beret, when in actuality they are no more than well-used oats. There might be more options from which to choose, but I tend to keep my distance from Sadie’s culinary preferences.
It doesn’t take her long to select her favorites for the day, and is soon chowing down like Rosie O’Donnell at a Hostess Twinkie eating contest. Sadie eventually gets her fill, but even being completely satiated doesn’t stop her from continuing her excursion in to equine excrement. If she can’t eat any more, she apparently feels obligated to roll around in it. Occasionally she’ll stop to check to see if she has missed a spot on her fur, then dives back in. She is…if nothing else…finicky about developing an even layer of horseshit. I guess there is something to be said for a dog that strives for completeness and has an eye for detail.
OK. She’s an outdoor dog. We don’t bathe her. That’s what rain is for. It has been raining all day today, so I assumed that Sadie would be relatively free from the filth that she so carefully accumulated yesterday. I went into my shop to work on my Harley, and Sadie followed me in.
Did I mention that Sadie is a loving dog that always feels the need to be rubbing up against me or poking her nose in my crotch? I was sitting on my work stool putting the air cleaner back on my bike, and Sadie tried to practically crawl into my lap. The aroma of a wet dog combined with day old horseshit was overwhelming. Sadie mistook my frantic attempts at pushing her away as a signal to play and doubled her efforts. Eventually I was able to coax her outside and then stagger back into my shop, gasping for oxygen.
I’m not going to say she smelled bad, but the EPA came to my house this evening. They were all wearing space suits and asking questions about my dog. The odor she had generated would have been rejected by Saddam Hussein as “too cruel” to use as a chemical agent during battle. Chuck Norris would have trouble functioning in an atmosphere that smelled like that dog.
When I entered the house later that evening I was told by my wife (who obviously has an acute sense of smell) to take my clothes off in the garage. Thanks, Sadie.
Like the old joke goes:
“My dog has no nose!”
“How does it smell?”
“Awful!”
