MY DOGS EAT POOP AND FOUR OTHER THINGS YOU PROBABLY WISH YOU DIDN'T KNOW

My neighborhood has cats roaming...lots of cats. And for some reason, they all seem to stop in my yard to take a dump.

I have Dachshunds, two of them, Missy and Annie. They are adorable dogs, all pumped up and full of energy. They sleep peacefully in a large kennel at night and in the morning our routine is always the same: Straight from the kennel to the yard for their morning elimination of waste procedure (pooping and peeing for anyone who doesn't understand that). The excitement as they go bounding down the steps is contagious. "Come on girls! Good morning girls!!" They dance at my feet, asking for belly rubs, then rush out into the yard which, this time of year, is usually wet and cold, to get their business done in a hurry.

The other part of our routine is, after I see them both go, I rush back to the back door saying things like, "Come on girls, brrrrrrr...let's get inside and get breakfast!" But they never show up behind me because they are off around the side of the house hunting up the latest fresh pile of cat shit. If the temperatures are above freezing, they gobble down this gourmet delight before I can get to them with the fly swatter, but if it's frozen up over night, oh the GLEE!! They pick up these poop-sicles and head for the back door with them, thinking that I might actually someday say, "Oh, you are such gorgeous creatures! Of COURSE you can bring that pile of frozen cat dung into my house!" They stop at the back door and look up at me with it propping open their mouths, wagging their tails, knowing the fly swatter is coming, then they drop it on the patio to save for later.

I was thinking this might be a nutritional deficiency but then I thought, not true. That is WASTE. There isn't anything nutritious in that. And then I had to come to the grim and embarrassing realization that they just like to eat cat shit.

The second thing you probably don't want to know is that I now have a burning desire to shoot cats that come into my yard. Discharging a firearm in the city limits is, of course, prohibited and frowned upon, especially by your neighbors and especially if you aren't a real good shot. But sometimes I think that a couple of days in jail would be worth it to take the Dachshunds' snacks away from them. It's that pesky court date after the jail time that would make me nervous. I don't do well when faced with irritated authority figures.

Every now and then I get out a hammer and want to start knocking the walls out of my house. Not all of them. Usually just the one between my dining room and the bathroom. I've always wanted a big bathroom with a stand-up shower and a bathtub (Jacuzzi), big plants, a place that I could live in if necessary...a TV, etc. But the problem is, people want to charge money for knocking out walls, and I don't have any.

I am living in fear that if my life doesn't settle down soon, I will be having to live by making tunnels through the clutter in my house, like the old man who they found lost in his own maze. Of course, I could never let actual garbage accumulate like that, but I'm tired, dammit, and I come home and drop everything on the nearest surface and think, "Tomorrow, clutter, tomorrow, you go." Then the phone rings and my plans are foiled.

And last but not least: I am addicted to the blog Fuck You, Penguin. It's hilarious and I keep coming up with my own animal scenarios in my head and say things constantly now like, "Fuck you, cat!" (Only I don't mean that in a cutsie way).

Back to work I go. I have 13 hours to make up this weekend from all the running I did all week, so as tempting as it is to say, "Fuck you, work!" I won't. Yet. Not until later this afternoon. Well, maybe I'll do it now, just to make myself feel good.