One thing I'm good at, besides eating sticks, is pooping. Mom says I'm the poopingest dog she's ever seen, and I graciously accept that compliment in the spirit of its delivery. So, a few months back, Dad bought Mom a little surprise - a pooper scooper! Yes, that marvelous invention of a little bucket and a rake/shovel combo with which to scoop the poop into said bucket. Mom was delighted! She got busy with that right away, and I - as always - helped. You see, one time last year, Mom went out to pick up poo and said, "Come on, Gus. You wanna show me where the poo is?" And she and Dad kind of laughed, but I went outside with her, jumping around all crazy like I do whenever Mom and I are gonna go anywhere. And once out there, I started sniffing around the yard and settled on an old poo of mine, stopped, and looked at Mom, who was headed my way. Well, you would have thought I stood up on my hind legs and tipped a top hat in her direction. Mom went nuts! Now, I didn't stop at that poo on purpose, but I'm never telling. And I might do some stupid things, but I'm not a stupid dog, so when me sniffing poo got this reaction, of course I did it again. So, this is our pickin' up poo routine. I must sniff out at least one poo for it to be a successful adventure.
Big Brother also had to learn to use the pooper scooper, and he was not as excited about it as Mom. They argued for a minute over whether the little rake should be used as a rake or a shovel, but they got past that (do what you want, for Pete's sake, but just pick up the poo!). Once summer really got rolling, and the grass grew about a mile a minute, Big Brother's success at this chore waned. He told Mom he had a hard time finding the poo in the taller grass. "I guess it is a challenge to find it when the grass needs cut," Mom replied. Big Brother and I exchanged a glance, and we both sniggered. I couldn't believe Mom bought that line, but she took up the pooper scoopering once more.
Then last week the strangest thing happened. Mom and I went out to pick up the poo, but we couldn't find any! "He must just do all his pooping at daycare," Dad said. Mom scoffed. I scoffed. I know darn well I've dropped a deuce or two in the yard since Mom picked up the last batch. But we walked all over that yard, like we were conducting a line search for a clue to a serious crime. And yet, when our walking was done, our poop bucket was empty. Mom was confounded. I was alarmed. Someone was stealing my poo!! "That is crazy, Gus," Mom said, dutifully typing my thoughts per our arrangement, once I had settled back down in the house.
Crazy? Ha! Suspect #1: The composting neighbor. Mom laughed out loud. "Ok, yes, she did send out a note asking for composting materials to help get her compost pile started, but I don't think she needs to steal your poo, because they have their own dog." I thought about that. My girl Bailey lives with the composter, and she's pretty cute - Bailey, that is. "Do cute girl dogs poo?" I wondered out loud.
"Everyone poos," Mom said with a tone that said she was shutting down this line of thinking.
Fine. Suspect #2: Maurice the Mutt's grandma. Her flowers are way too nice to be that way on their own. She must be skimming my poos to supplement her garden! "She does have some beautiful flowers," Mom agreed, "and she does know just how to plant them so that they look good together, but I have the same argument as your last suspect - if they want poo, they have Maurice's. Well, I thought, Maurice does poop freely - even in our yard when he gets out of his fence! Darn dog. Mom was right. If they needed fertilizer, Maurice was full of it.
That just leaves one more neighbor. Suspect #3: The guy with the no pooping sign in his front yard. Like dogs can read that! I laugh every time we walk past it, because I can figure out what the little pooping dog with a line through it means, but I'm exceptional. So I'm not sure what dogs he thinks are paying attention to his little sign. Mom clearly is, because she tries to walk me real fast past his house, but sometimes, when she's off in her own thoughts, I'll stop and drop one right there, shouting, "Nice sign, man!" in my head, while I laugh all the way home. "Gus," Mom said. "He doesn't want your poop in his yard, so why would he steal it out of ours?" Fair point, I guess, but I did not tell Mom. Anyone who puts up a sign like that is sus for sure.
Then I thought of another possible suspect - the cat! "The cat?" Mom looked a me skeptically.
"You heard me," I said. "Type 'the cat,'" and Mom did. She knew who I meant - that stray cat with the white socks that's always scoping out Neighbor Greg's adopted birds when they're just innocently hanging out near his bird feeder. In fact, yesterday I chased that cat off, but I was too late. He ran away with a bird. : ( "That's what cats do," Dad said, but I decided then and there that cat was evil.
"Why exactly would that stray cat take your poo?" Mom asked.
"Because it's evil," I said. "Any cat that would kill an innocent bird must be evil. And those kinds of cats probably do other bad things - like steal."
"It was very sad when we weren't quick enough to save the bird," Mom agreed. "And I'm no cat fan, but I still don't see the point of the cat taking the poo. I think that's a stretch."
Ok. One last suspect then: The vet. "The vet?!" Mom really LOLed at that.
"Speaking of evil," I mumbled.
"Gus!" Mom stopped typing. "You cannot just start accusing people - or other pets - just because you don't like them. That's not right, and we don't do that around here."
Well, you might not, I thought, but somebody's been taking my poo, and it certainly wouldn't be anyone I like or who likes us. Mom tried to backspace over "the vet," but I stuck my paw out over the keyboard. "This is my blog, Mom," I said with authority. "You can't start editing it now."
"Fine," Mom said. "Then we'll just end it here. It's a bunch of silly mess anyway."
"That's for sure," Dad interjected.
"Hey, hey!" I was a bit offended. "Speak for yourself! I don't think it's silly, not one little bit. Let's move on, though," I agreed. "Let's think of a way to catch the culprit."
Mom rolled her eyes. "A back door camera," I suggested.
"No one comes to the back door," Dad said.
Oh, now everyone wants to get in on the "silly mess," huh? I thought. "No one except the poo thief," I pointed out.
Dad shook his head and walked away. "I'm with Dad, Gus," Mom said. "You can sit by the back door and watch for the thief, ok? And that's gonna be the end of this."
Alright, I thought. But when that poo thief starts taking the sticks, it's on! In the meantime, I'm moving on to detective mode, and you can brainstorm what could have happened to my poo. And if you're the one pilfering my poo, I'll be watching for you.
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