The Turd Burglar

As long as we've been together, Jay and I have had pets. First cats, then kids, then cats and kids and dogs, then less cats, then less dogs, then more kids, then more cats, and then more dogs. As long as there have been cats and dogs together, there have been Turd Burglars. For whatever reason, a litter box full of cat poop is nothing but a huge candy dish full of Almond Roca to a dog. (What they are to kids, luckily we never found out, but Ryan got pretty darn close to turning the tables on the dogs and sampling one of THEIR poops once. Thank God his dad was quick.)

I have never been one to let a dog lick me, at least not outside of my marital bed. This is why I've always found cats more impressive. A cat is fully aware that it has the humiliating requirement of bathing itself and will never try to pass that nastiness on to its owner, and for that, I love them. I will give them all the kisses and hugs I know in their hearts they want to share with me but can't. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the canine companion. A dog will happily eat any turd, any time, with as much gusto as he will gulp down his kibble. Dogs, you see, are retarded. They can't even appreciate the difference between tasty or turd. I don't care how many people try to explain how smart they are, how they have amazing hearing, they can respond to hundreds of commands, they are companions, hunters, protectors, even guiders of the blind. In my mind, though, as long as they continue to eat poop, they are idiots. 
  
Back to life with cats and dogs. After one particularly noxious incident years ago where a friend of mine was letting our dog lick her face as I was simultaneously attempting to find the source of a particularly offensive smell (guess how the two were related??), we learned that baby gates, long considered unnecessary in our 3-kid-limit household, were again needed to keep the dogs from the snack boxes. To this day, our cat litter room (yes, we have such a ridiculously high number of cats that they actually have their own "litter room") has always had a gate to it. Ginger is precious, but not if her mouth is full of cat poop.

Enter Pups, aka the Turd Burglar.

My sweet, adorable, amazingly cute Lil Pups eats poop. And not only does he eat poop, he eats his OWN poop. Often. All the time. Before I can stop him. I've done my research. I've found some puppies are guilty of this particularly disturbing trait of gluttony. I've found some do it for a vitamin deficiency and I've found some do it for the age old reason that stands to explain any dog behavior: Because they can.

And herein lies my moral dilemma. In the midst of this snacking, I find myself at complete odds with myself. On the one hand, I love my new puppy and I want him to learn how to potty correctly and be able to give him kisses and hugs. On the other hand, I find it a pleasant surprise that there are a lot less dog poop piles I have to pick up. I wonder out loud to family, "Hmmm....I wonder why the puppy isn't going potty very much?" While secretly I withhold my shameful secret. Deep down, I know if I wait just a few minutes longer after he goes, down his gullet will go the smelly, no longer my responsibility to pick up, puppy poop.

What is the solution? At this point, I don't know. But you know that taste you have when you wake up in the morning with trash mouth? You actually feel like you might have been snacking on a turd while you were sleeping? Well, I know what that breath REALLY smells like. It's the same breath my puppy has every time he tries to lick me. So obviously I want to rid him of this evil habit (and even more evil breath). But a teeny tiny part of me is also intrigued by this ability to literally clean up after himself. Soooo....what to do, what to do, what to do??????

My Potty Mouth Pups