The Blue Bag Patrol

"Did she poop yet?"

"Yes. She sure did. It was a two bagger dropped in multiple locations!"

"Was it mushy?"

"No, it was firm and well-defined. I was so proud."

"How did it smell, wiseguy?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"I'm trying to find out if she ate the cheese?"

"Oh, yeah. I'd say she ate the cheese. Both kinds of cheese. Definitely ate the cheese. Big time cheese."


My husband and I looked at each other and started to laugh. Many of our conversations these days are about our Basset Hound's excrement, or lack there of. We pick up the poo with blue poo bags we buy in big quantities at Wal*mart.
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It has been this way since she adopted us more than five years ago.

We used to have most of our conversations about books, movies, politics or sports. Now, our most recurring topic of discussion is our Boo's bowel movements.

It beats talking about our own bowel movements, I guess.

Boo has a special area to poop in right off of our deck, and we immediately retrieve, bag and dispose of said poo. She trots in the house for her reward, which we call a "special." This "special" consists of a crunchy treat, a liver treat and two pieces of dog chow. If, for some reason, we miss a poop, she lets us know by pointing to it from a discreet distance and freezing on the spot.

Woe to us, if for any reason we forget any part of that "special". The only reason it gets forgotten is if one of us picks up the poo, assuming the other is with it, and will give the "special."

Boo has a way of glaring at us, if we forget, that makes us remember soon enough.

The other time Boo might do her business is when we go for her daily walk. For some reason when we leash-walk Boo, she likes to make her mark by pooping in the middle of the street. The side of the street will not do. No, Boo is quite insistent on this and uses all of her close to 60 pounds to push towards the middle. This forces her hapless human to stand in the center of the road, trying to hold on to her leash while bending over with the blue poop bag in hand, scooping up the prize of the walk.

Our little girl is a slow moving ambler, sniffing for random scents, except when I am bent over, leash in hand, cleaning up her doo-doo. Then, for some reason, all of a sudden she takes a notion to skedaddle, hoping against hope that I will fall over in the leavings to her unbridled amusement.

That is just my suspicion. I cannot prove anything.

Parenting a Basset Hound has been a joy. There is nothing that melts our hearts so fast as seeing her amble towards us with a smile on her face, ears flopping side to side, hoping for a treat or insisting on the well-earned "special".

We brought her through the puppy years. Sharp teeth punctured our tender arms and legs, but we hung in there. Hands and hooves were bloody and battered, but we wouldn't trade a second of the puppy time.

Well, maybe we would trade the time she ate rocks in the back yard and had to have hundreds of dollars worth of x-rays to determine what was wrong with her. Luckily the Vet thought they were small enough to pass through. That was the day we decided she needed pet health insurance.

We watched the poo poo closely for those two little rocks, hoping to avoid surgery. We were rewarded with white rocks shining through the muck, more beautiful than any gold or diamond could be.

Even earlier this week, she ate a piece of aluminum foil in the street and swallowed it before I could move to yank it out of her mouth. She moves a lot faster than I do these days. Ever since then, I've looked for the shining in the poo. I haven't had any luck in spotting it yet, but I'm still hopeful. Being the devil that she is, she might have spit it out without me knowing it.

We generally watch and worry about everything, just like all parents do.

We watch her and she watches the cat across the street. She doesn't usually bark too much, being a happy-go-lucky sort of pup.

The cat across the street is called Othello. He is sixteen years old, but still moves pretty well - well enough to alarm Boo. If she sees him take a step out of his yard into the street, she throws her head back and howls like the loudest hound in Hades.

Poor Othello cannot make a venture out without hearing the howl of the neighboring hound.

My latest technique to stop Boo from eating things in the street is to tell her it is Othello's poo. That brings her up short and she actually stares at me and tilts her head to the side.

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"Did the aluminum foil come out yet, honey?"

"No, but the poop was firm...and nice."

And so we lovingly watch and wait, hoping against hope for aluminum foil in the poop. Medically speaking, what goes in must come out sometime.

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This was written a while back.

Boo passed away at the age of 14 1/2 in December of 2020, healthy and active until the very end. Othello is in kitty cat heaven, he went there a few years before Boo passed, but was over 17 himself.

We miss Boo every day.

After this story, she had pancreatitis, so we switched to carrots and apples (and green beans for a time) for snacks, and had her weight down around 51 pounds, give or take.

We never found the foil.