Jouney to the center of the backyard

I've had a number of dogs in my day. Roxy is the first one I've had on the East Coast. There's something we have here, that I didn't have on the Left Coast - winter. With winter comes snow. Snow covers a lot of things. One of the main things is poop.

Yes...I said it...poop. Lots and lots of it. If your squeamish, you might want to stop here. I'm going to talk a LOT about it. Hell...I'm going to even sing about it.

While it's covered in pretty white stuff, it is easy to forget that down below, is a layer so unholy, that it would give you nightmares.

The first winter we had Roxy, and mind you she was yet a pup, it was shocking. Even more shocked was LTR who had a life time of litter pans and never had to deal with puppy poops. I was of the mind to celebrate and say, "Cool! I don't have to pick anything up all winter!"

It was anything BUT cool when winter went away.

I handed LTR a plastic grocery bag, tiptoed out into the ungodly mess and started to poop-scoop. LTR hung with me for maybe the first, full bag. When the second bag started to fill up I noticed a strange green hue creeping up around her cheeks. As I heaped a hearty scoop into the bag, she turned tail and was nothing more than a cartoon puff of smoke with bobby pins spinning in the air.

And I was alone.....in a wasteland of waste.

Over the years I learned from that experience. For starters, don't count on LTR to help with the winter clean up. More importantly; work in layers.

As the snow starts to melt and the levels start to shrink, you see on the horizon, lil zombie turds rising from the snow. Get out there and SCOOP! Scoop like your life depended on it.

You don't want to wait till the snow is gone and the Baby Ruth's have thawed. It's not going to help you in the picking up process. Turds on ice is the only way to scoop.

After you get used to this horrific part of spring, I find myself trying to look at the positive, such as: this year I found, in a perfectly flattened dropping, a preserved squirrel's paw print. I wondered if the squirrel, after stepping in it, looked at his paw and said in a Alvin the Chipmunk voice, "Ah shit!"

There was evidence of the Xmas M&M fiasco, where we dropped them and Roxy sucked them up faster than we could get our hands on them. What laid before me was filled with red and green polka dots.

I also like to hum while scooping, it seems to distract from the horrors I see before me. Often times changing the lyrics to fit the occasion. Of course show tunes are my favorite.

South Pacific

I'm gonna wash that poop right out of my shoe

I'm gonna wash that poop right out of my shoe

I'm gonna wash that poop right out of my shoe

Or throw it right away

Or some Guys and Dolls

Scooping turds it is so laaaaame

Nothing is so absurd

That stupid dog she is to blaaaame

For this scooping is such a pain

Or my favorite...Oklahoma

I'm just a turd that can't stay low

I always rise to the top

I should stay just un-der the snow

But as it melts I go 'pop'!

Sigh...when faced with a messy job, I try to make the best of it, what can I say?