Our family has two dogs. One is about a year old and the other a year or so older. In their minds, they are still puppies.
That means they chew the heck out of things, particularly our part-black Lab Thor. He maniacally grabs every fake little animal we throw his way, shaking it with his head, jaw clenched around it, grinning, like it’s some grand show. Which it is to him.
To us though, it presents another problem, something not in my job description. Once he shreds, rips, tears each of these toy little beasts apart, the insides bleed across our backyard where he has happily romped with it.
If you’ve never had dogs or don’t purchase these chew toys, you may not know that they bleed this white fluffy stuff when their insides spill out. Thor gobbles them chunk by chunk, and as he depletes the body shell of each fake animal, he spits out balls of finely-spun white material that probably is petroleum-based and doesn’t degrade in the environment.
Wind then picks them up, blows them against our fence, under bushes, wedges them into mulch or the side lot next door. As Thor and Pepper (our other dog, who also contributes to this mess) devastate every one of these gifts we bring them, I trail along, picking up the remnants.
You don’t realize you’ve signed up for this duty when you bring dogs into your household. Like many other things in life, the reality of something isn’t quite what your fantasy world envisioned. We head down paths not considering all the consequences.
Pets, in general, pose a lot of issues that we don’t think about beforehand. In addition to shredded white fluffy material blowing around your backyard, there is the other big one that many don’t think of before they bring a dog home: Cleaning up after the hound.
That means picking up and throwing away everything he has chewed apart. It also means the deposits he leaves after processing the carbon he ingests. Yes, we are talking about the dreaded dog poop. It never ends.
If you let it go for too long, your yard is covered and you can’t keep your shoes clean while tip-toeing through the grass. Wrap the plastic bag around your hand for protection, grab the mounds, drop them into the other plastic bag and move on to find the next surprise.
Really, it’s not that bad. It’s just something you have to do. But you don’t always think before you get the dog: “That’s gonna be in my home job description for the next 14 years.” Doing it often enough, you become an expert “Dog Poop Picker Upper.” You may not put it on your resume or LinkedIn profile, but you achieve elite level status after years of experience.
You recognize what you didn’t sign up for after you’ve actually signed up – like buying a house (and not realizing all the shrubs that need regular trimming) or taking a job (“and OMG, the commute is twice as long as my previous job”) or agreeing to volunteer (and suddenly you have a pile of papers to summarize and put together a proposal on something you know nothing about).
Figure it out beforehand. That’s the key. Look at the change from multiple angles and consider the unintended consequences. If we had officials in high places analyzing the world’s issues along these lines, we’d be in a lot better position to solve complex problems. And maybe we’d figure out a more environmentally-friendly stuffing to put in those dog chew toys.
That means they chew the heck out of things, particularly our part-black Lab Thor. He maniacally grabs every fake little animal we throw his way, shaking it with his head, jaw clenched around it, grinning, like it’s some grand show. Which it is to him.
To us though, it presents another problem, something not in my job description. Once he shreds, rips, tears each of these toy little beasts apart, the insides bleed across our backyard where he has happily romped with it.
If you’ve never had dogs or don’t purchase these chew toys, you may not know that they bleed this white fluffy stuff when their insides spill out. Thor gobbles them chunk by chunk, and as he depletes the body shell of each fake animal, he spits out balls of finely-spun white material that probably is petroleum-based and doesn’t degrade in the environment.
Wind then picks them up, blows them against our fence, under bushes, wedges them into mulch or the side lot next door. As Thor and Pepper (our other dog, who also contributes to this mess) devastate every one of these gifts we bring them, I trail along, picking up the remnants.
You don’t realize you’ve signed up for this duty when you bring dogs into your household. Like many other things in life, the reality of something isn’t quite what your fantasy world envisioned. We head down paths not considering all the consequences.
Pets, in general, pose a lot of issues that we don’t think about beforehand. In addition to shredded white fluffy material blowing around your backyard, there is the other big one that many don’t think of before they bring a dog home: Cleaning up after the hound.
That means picking up and throwing away everything he has chewed apart. It also means the deposits he leaves after processing the carbon he ingests. Yes, we are talking about the dreaded dog poop. It never ends.
If you let it go for too long, your yard is covered and you can’t keep your shoes clean while tip-toeing through the grass. Wrap the plastic bag around your hand for protection, grab the mounds, drop them into the other plastic bag and move on to find the next surprise.
Really, it’s not that bad. It’s just something you have to do. But you don’t always think before you get the dog: “That’s gonna be in my home job description for the next 14 years.” Doing it often enough, you become an expert “Dog Poop Picker Upper.” You may not put it on your resume or LinkedIn profile, but you achieve elite level status after years of experience.
You recognize what you didn’t sign up for after you’ve actually signed up – like buying a house (and not realizing all the shrubs that need regular trimming) or taking a job (“and OMG, the commute is twice as long as my previous job”) or agreeing to volunteer (and suddenly you have a pile of papers to summarize and put together a proposal on something you know nothing about).
Figure it out beforehand. That’s the key. Look at the change from multiple angles and consider the unintended consequences. If we had officials in high places analyzing the world’s issues along these lines, we’d be in a lot better position to solve complex problems. And maybe we’d figure out a more environmentally-friendly stuffing to put in those dog chew toys.