Walking stories

Giving dog dreck its due

June 1, 2021

I am fastidious about picking up the poop. 

Once when Greenberg pooped at the top of a sidewalk incline, a nugget of what was produced rolled downhill, and it was dark and I couldn’t really see where it was.  So I walked on.   A half-block away, overcome with guilt.  I went back to retrieve the dropping, which had wound up on the corner of someone’s sidewalk tree cut-out. What I was searching for was hard to find, because it wasn’t still warm – which my fingers, inside a plastic bag as I reach out a few seconds after the deed is done, could have felt –  and visibility was poor. 

When we first got the dog, and we weren’t sure how well he was housebroken, he and I would return to home base, and I would give my husband an oral  report of the digestive by-products that the specific foray had produced.  “I don’t want to talk about dog shit,” my man would say.  Getting a dog had  basically been my decision. At the time, he’d been willing to go along with my passion, but he wasn’t interested in discussing the precise results of dog-walking.

Now, he’s as nuts about the dog as I am, and he calls it “poop,” as does any respectful dog-owner.  Maybe such conversations aren’t the norm in, say Downton Abbey, but whether or not our dog has adhered to his usual schedule is a routine and acceptable topic of conversation in our house, not so much for the pleasure of it, but mainly because it provides useful information about the necessities of timing the next walk after that which has just been completed. 

Anyway, today I am accompanied on my afternoon walk with Greenberg by a friend who professes to love him a lot.    Before we leave the house, I check my pockets for the necessities:  key, so we can get back into the house; treats, to indicate to the dog that he’s done well, if he has done well; plastic poop bags in which to contain that which has been pooped.

A small sidebar on those bags:   My constant walks provide plenty of time for deep contemplation of related matters.  As the recipients of two newspapers a day, we use the bags in which they are wrapped for dog bags.  I also buy rolls of poop bags, available at any pet supply store.  One inserts one’s hand into the  bag as though it were a glove, grabs what’s on the sidewalk  through the plastic film, then turns the  bag inside out.  This series of actions, in which the hand is protected from touching the poop, results in that which is to be left behind being nestled in the  bottom of the  bag; a knot should be tied on top for hurling the thing into the nearest city trash bin.

But why, I ask myself (maybe I ought to try Siri), are the cute cartoony  pictures of dogs always printed on the outsides of the bags?. When one sets out for the walk, the bag is stuffed into one’s pocket.  No one can see it.   But those outsides become the insides when the bag is in use, making it  impossible for any passer- by to appreciate the good taste of the owner in selecting that particular bag.  The printing of the poop bag is wrong, akin to having your New Yorker tote bag with the logo on the inside. Poop bags should be printed with the cartoon on the inside, which will become the outside after the dog-owner has made use of it.  

Anyway, the three of us – I, Greenberg, my dog-loving friend – turn at the bottom of our front steps to hike up the hill.  On our own block, there will be some sniffing and then some peeing, but nothing serious.  Greenberg knows not to befoul his own place and obviously he considers the block where our own house is as his own place.

Once we round the corner to walk a block east on Page Street, if there’s a great need to go, he will let loose.   Still, this block is like the foyer to the place he really likes best, so he’ll go on it only in great need.   

As we turn up Broderick Street toward Haight, I explain to my friend that we are at the primary pooping fields.  She laughs politely.  I check my pocket to make sure that the plastic bag is handy.

My friend forges ahead along the block.   Just a second, I say, because Greenberg has started moseying.  This means that -- unless we encounter another dog or a bird or a skateboarder to distract him -- he is contemplating elimination.   This is good news, broadcast by the intensity with which he keeps his nose to the ground, the wiggle of his rear end.  He is thinking of pooping.

My friend strides purposefully up Broderick Street.  Slow down, I holler.   We need to give him time to ….. My friend laughs, continues our conversation, which is about something or other totally not dog-related.  I am barely listening to her, as I’m focused on the purpose of our walk, to clear out that dog’s insides.

But at first, there’s little action on Broderick.  There’s enough of a herding instinct in Greenberg that he wants to keep up with my friend’s hustling steps. We round the corner up to Haight Street and once again, she forges ahead, this time going west.  Once again I ask her to slow down so that nature, which is sometimes dawdling, can take its course.   Although distracted by her place,  Greenberg is sniffing ever more intently.

At this point, he seems to select his place, near which he begins his pre-poop pirouette, a movement familiar to most dog-owners.  This always makes me happy;  the  countdown begins, mission about to be accomplished.  Just a sec, I tell my friend, but by this time she is a quarter block ahead of me.

Greenberg gets into his squat, a position I think ought to be described by a French word, like plie, or grand jete. The poop plops onto the sidewalk, I praise the dog, I put the plastic bag over my hand and  I reach down to pick up what he has produced.  And I feel an unmistakable sense of satisfaction.  After all, that’s why we have come to this place at this time.

Relieved, I look up, ready to tell my friend that we can go home now.   She is way up the street.  She has scurried away from me and my dog as fast as she could.

It suddenly occurs to me that this process is one  she finds gross.  She doesn’t want to be anywhere nearby, philosophically or physically.. Cuddling with the dog is a very different activity than standing by when he does what living creatures have to do.   I may be delighted at the success of the walk, but I’m quite sure she finds the whole thing disgusting.   

Well la-de-dah.