This Motherfucking Dog

Ok, here’s what this dog did today.

We were having a great walk. The sun was shining, we’d gotten out before it got too hot, we’d just responsibly greeted an older golden retriever walking next to the neighborhood swimming pool instead of jumping on top of it and making it barf (that has happened before, and I am not proud). I’d put my headphones back in and was listening to a podcast in which someone was saying nice things about me. Fargo was sniffing the grass.

Even when she put her face down into the grass, starting that wiggle dogs do when they want to cover themselves in a stinky scent, I figured there was just the long-lost memory of something dead there. In fact, I said to myself, reflexively pulling her back up, “Well, at least I don’t see any roadkill.”

She got up covered in shit.

I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it. I don’t know if the grass was too long or if my mild color-blindness held me back or if its liquid nature just had it sitting closer to the ground than normal, but there was evidently a puddle of shit in that grass, and in the half-second she spent on the ground, Fargo got it all over her neck and her chest. There was shit on her collar. There was shit under her ear. It looked like someone had taken a spatula and brownie batter and started to coat my dog with it. She was smiling ear to ear.

At the moment, I didn’t know it was diarrhea. I thought it might be vomit. It wasn’t until later, in the bathroom, when I bent in to start shampooing the little fucker, that I caught a big whiff, gagged, and knew for certain it was shit. I’m glad it was shit, I’m glad it wasn’t vomit, if it was vomit I would assume it came from a human but since it was shit I can assume it came from a dog, and for some reason I’m more ok bringing internal fluids from dogs’ bodies into my abode than I am bringing in internal fluids from humans. At that moment, though, I didn’t know what it was. I only knew that we were going straight home.

Fargo knew this too. I’m still not sure what her emotions were or are over what she had accomplished, but Fargo knew that because of what she had just done, the walk was immediately over. She turned around and began trotting, mouth wide open, tongue out, eyes bright in her face’s natural grin, tail straight back as though it would aid her aerodynamic capacity. We stopped to sniff few things over those few blocks, and when we walked into the house, she wasn’t the slightest bit confused when I did not take off her harness. We walked up the stairs, leash still in my hand, other end of leash attached to a dog very much covered in light brown diarrhea.

Once upstairs, things got tricky. I knew I needed to give her a bath, but I did not know 1) where her shampoo was or 2) where the cup was that we use to dump water on her once we’ve got her in the tub. I still don’t know the answer to 2. I grabbed a cup I used to drink water from instead, holding the leash tight, turning the dog back in my direction every time she took a step in anything resembling the direction of upholstery. I remain convinced she knew what was happening, and I’m grateful she didn’t put up a fight, but something funny did happen when we finally got to the bathroom.

She started walking into the bedroom next door.

I think this was a half-hearted escape attempt. She knew she wasn’t going to escape this situation with dignity, having already robbed me of mine (it is a low point when you, in the same voice you use to tell your dog they’re a good girl, are telling your dog they’re the worst dog in the world while they trot along smiling in front of you, wearing a lapel designed and produced by another dog’s indigestion), but she had to make some sort of effort. To not try to avoid a bath would violate whatever code dogs have, the same one responsible for the circling before taking a dump and the lying flat on sidewalks when there’s another dog on the block and they want to play. So, while I walked into the bathroom, she began to enter the bedroom, seemingly saying, See ya later, buddy, have fun in there! I’m told (someone else in the house had worked until 3 AM and was still mostly asleep in the other bed) this resulted in me yelling, “NO. BATHROOM. WE’RE TAKING A BATH.” Whatever the exact word choice, she got the hint, and after a quick herding into the powder room jumped gracefully over the tub’s edge, where she stood and awaited her fate.

This is when I became the most upset.

For one thing, I couldn’t find the shampoo. We have 94 different bottles of various things under that bathroom sink, ranging from sunscreen to more sunscreen to Tylenol to a Clorox spray I’m going to use liberally once I can bring myself to open that room’s door again. We also have a few plastic bags, hanging out there waiting to be used in the little wastebaskets which get all gross behind the toilet. Finally, we have an inordinate number of pads for the Swiffer mop which sits dust-covered in the laundry room corner, and we have so many pads for the same reason we never use the stupid thing: The pads get used up after about eight square feet. Eventually, I found the shampoo, but while I looked through the 176 bottles, Target bags, and boxes of shitty mop pads, I had to keep checking over my shoulder, fully prepared for a shit-splattered dog to come bounding out of the tub, ready to help investigate the interesting cupboard.

For another thing, it quickly became very hot in that little room. We had been in motion, we had been in the sun, every pipe in this city is spitting out water at a temperature of at least 85° right now because it doesn’t get much below eighty at night. By the end of the bath, I was drenched in sweat, so drenched that I ended up just removing most of my clothes and leaving them in the towel pile, not knowing when I would have the courage to reenter the room and begin the cleaning process.

But the worst thing about this, the worst thing about giving Fargo a bath when she’s covered her neck and chest in someone else’s diarrhea, is how fucking water-repellent her stupid fucking coat is. Get a doodle, they say, they’re great for allergies because they don’t shed. Well guess what, buddy, those fuckers are waterdogs, and they’ve got the fur to prove it, and when the shit’s all nestled in there and it’s up under their chin it’s not exactly as easy as turning the shower on and watching another dog’s fiber intake swirl down the drain. You have to get your hands in there. You have to massage the canine waste out of the fucking fur. And the whole time, at least my dog likes to hold her chin out over the edge of the tub, so that the water—and shit—dripping off of her makes a big brown puddle on the floor unless you continuously wrestle her back towards the faucet. Why does she do this? Well, that’s the question surrounding this entire incident. I think the answer is Because She’s a Dog.

After twenty minutes of cuss-speckled bathing, I had done the best I was willing to do, and I let the girl free, terrified I’d find a stranger’s diarrhea on the couch later because I’d missed it in her armpit or something. (She asked for a belly rub once she’d dried off, showing me her armpits and alleviating any remaining concerns. I gave her the belly rub. Obviously. I’m not a monster.) Of course, by this point she was sopping wet, so she had the zoomies and started sprinting around the apartment, and the water on her fur made her feel nice and cool in the outside air, so when I took her out to pee (after running her leash and harness and collar through the washing machine on the hottest setting), she ended up trotting off for a second walk, this one a full mile and a half and filled with lots of friendly visits with strangers who had no idea why the dog they were petting was a little bit damp.

She is the best dog. But dammit, that bathroom is fucking gross now.