Please Don't Litter

Mrs. Author and I are food snobs. We all have our faults - may as well throw that one out there. It's a serious affliction when you consider that we both hate to cook. We just don't like junk food. It's not like our kitchen is dripping with saffron encrusted lobster tails and vials of truffle oil, but you won't find nukeable pockets of any sort in the freezer.

We follow the same approach to our life with dogs, and buy them all natural, high quality food. Sola has allergies that rule out most of the cheap foods. No chicken lips and gristle kibble for her. Our monthly budget for dog food is not insubstantial, but we believe that our dogs benefit from a healthy, balanced diet.

Sola: Tell Fudgepants that.

Author: Truffles has a little issue. Far too often, her smile matches her coat. If you happen to stop by for a visit and Fudgepants wants to plant one on you take a quick gander at her gums. Run at the first sign of brownies. Don't ask why: Just put down the fat dog and run.





Ours is a house of love, and that is apparent in the behavior of our dogs. They are unfailingly affectionate. Smooches are distributed with regularity and with no regard for circumstance. I'll be mid-sentence in a discussion and Nigel will walk by and get in a zip with that lizard quick tongue of his. Sola will tackle me and try to have her way if I'm not careful. Truffles has thrived in this environment, and regularly joins the love fest, fluttering about the family room, tail slicing arcs through the air, rump shaking, kisses flying.

Considering the caring environment we foster, you'd expect us to embrace her affection. Reality paints a substantially different picture. When Fudgepants peels back those lips and moves in for a steamy pucker, family members are seemingly ejected from assorted windows of the house. Our expenditure for glass replacement in January alone was just under nine thousand dollars. I'd bet a fiver that on more than a dozen occasions the neighbors must have thought the damn house was on fire.

It's as though the little pudgewagon has a built in kiss forcefield. If only that were the case.

Nigel: Stop dragging this out and spill the beans.

Author: The dog has elevated the act of turd chomping to an art form. Cat nuggets to be exact. I can't count the number of times that Truffles has emerged from the guest bathroom with a stench ridden smile, her snout encrusted in gray matter. This elicits much profanity as we scramble for the bathroom to clean up her post-picnic mess. Mrs. Author sweeps up the sprinkles. I put away the butter and the napkins.

We have devised numerous schemes to discourage her. Leaving the door open to grant the cat access is necessary, so the past few months have found us testing a variety of objects to achieve poo pursuit blockage. We vastly underestimated her determination. Her heft and hunger foiled our every move. Chairs, hampers, SUVs: all were waylaid in her pursuit of crunchy culinary delights. The dog is nasty.

Just the other day I sat down at the table with the paper to find Truffles looking back at me, obviously unhappy at being interrupted.






A lascivious litter lover, she's not content to eat from the box. All means and methods of preparation are employed, much to our chagrin. A recent movie viewing was interrupted when I noticed the microwave running after I had already retrieved a bag of popcorn from it. Returning to the kitchen, I was immediately forced to pull my shirt over my head in order to avoid being engulfed by a humid, gray smog that filled the room. I used a kitchen towel to wave about my face and clear a path to the nuker, hit the stop button and swung the door open.





An oven mitt was employed to launch the molten poo kiln abomination in to a snowbank by the garage. The nearest pine tree sagged a bit, needles browning. I watched the clay smolder as the snowbank melted and swore that I would put a stop to her less than pleasant habit. I had an idea.


Our cat gained thirty-four pounds the following week. I fed Boo no less than seven full boxes of Imodium in the course of as many days. He swelled up like a Limbaugh.

Boo: You just suck.

Author: Hey, if Truffles wouldn't stop coming to poo, then poo was going to stop coming to Truffles. At least I didn't starve you.

Yet I failed miserably. The following week the cat exploded - flying to and fro on a river of fudge; Truffles with paddle in hot pursuit, bib flapping behind her. Something had "popped the cork" so to speak, and I was determined to locate and eliminate the source of my angst. The obvious had escaped me until yesterday, when I tripped over this interesting piece of evidence:









Count me all the way out. And bid with confidence.





Nigel: Turn that frown something other than brown.

Truffles: I found a Milky Way in the couch loser. If it is not sh*t, you must acquit.