New Olympic Sport

I have to tell you, my human is not the most coordinated human on earth.  Honestly, it’s a miracle she can walk two of us on leashes at the same time – and stay upright.  Mind you there WAS that incident last winter when she DIDN’T stay upright and ended up with a broken wrist – but in general – she can walk two of us.  Three dogs is the ultimate challenge.  But despite her lack of coordination, I must say, at times, she IS a pretty good acrobat and juggler.  Even yesterday…

-29 degrees windchill. Let me tell you – that’s pretty cold. It was dark – 6AM.  As Frodo and I walked with our human up the driveway to the road – she BEGGED us to poop quickly.  We looked at each other and agreed we SHOULD probably go quickly – that wind was cold even for us.  So I pooped first – across the road.  And here the real acrobatics begin.  Here are Frodo and I, with our noses in the air – smelling and listening for ANY possibility of wildlife.  To pick up my poop, my human must remove one of her GIANT mittens and get one of those flimsy poop bags out of her pocket.  All while she is still holding onto the two leashes (Frodo and I who are not exactly standing still), holding onto the giant mitten and battling the gale force winds – trying not to lose the poop bag.  In the dark.  Using a headlamp.  Poop number one finally scooped.  Mitten is returned to freezing hand.  Now.  We need for Frodo to do his thing – so she just needs to juggle two leashes and the full poop bag. 

Frodo decides it IS cold.  So he poops.  In the meantime, I have spotted SOMETHING down the road.  It could be a rabbit!! Or a fox!! Or a leaf.  My human keeps saying over and over again: “Leave it.”   She repeats the poop pick-up process, leaving the first full bag on the ground.  As she fumbles to tie the second bag, which is blowing in the wind, with her now frozen hand, while still holding onto the leashes one of which I am pulling, Frodo decides to poop again. Aggghhhh.  Finally.  All poop picked up.  Mitten returned to hand.  Leashes secured.  Full poop bags in hand as well.  Let’s head home.

As we turn to go back down the driveway, my human stops to grab the newspaper out of the box.  At which point Frodo and I SEE SOMETHING down our driveway.  So NOW the REAL juggling begins.  Two full poop bags, two leashes which are horizontal because we are PULLING to see what scary creature is in our driveway, one newspaper - all being held by hands with giant mittens.  My human keeps repeating over and over: “Stop. Leave it.  Stop. Leave it.”  As we inch our way down the dark driveway, with our human repeating her mantra, we can now see clearly what the scary creature is.  The neighbor’s garbage can.  Which we had earlier passed on our way UP the driveway.

After that we trotted peacefully for the door.  And now my human got to take Paxton out for his walk.  What an invigorating way to start her day!  You know, the coordination involved in winter poop pick-up could probably be an Olympic sport .  Who do I talk to about it?

©  2015 Linda Wozniak