This story is a good example of me “going with the flow” as opposed to “nuclear meltdown”. We’ve all had those days where the sh*t hits the fan and we handled it poorly. But when we deal with crisis and do a great job we should take notice… because we are awesome! We totally got this adult/life thing handled and everything is going to be okay, eventually.

My elderly cat has a bad habit of pooping just OUTSIDE of his kitty litter cabinet… when he thinks the litter is not clean enough (he is a stickler for this.) Obviously, I had been derelict in my duties yesterday morning. After feeding the cats and dog I went into the kitchen to make myself breakfast and put together my lunch. I was half way through this process when I wondered why Mac had not made an appearance yet… had I not crinkled my plastic bagged spinach loudly enough? When I exited the kitchen I found my answer… my ancient cat deemed his litter box unacceptable and left “comment cards” expressing his profound discontent… which the dog had graciously accepted on my behalf. I know what you are thinking… and no… he did not eat it. He ROLLED in it. And that is exactly the scene I walked into… my clean beagle rolling fervently in cat poo.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”  I screeched.

Mac looked up at me and immediately realized he had done a very bad thing. He sprinted away, up the stairs and INTO MY BEDROOM. I panicked, chasing him up the stairs saying: DON’T YOU EVEN DARE!!

It was too late, he had already scrambled under the bed where he began to growl and bark. I spoke calmly in the direction of my bed asking him to please get into his crate. Each word yielded a furious bark. I tried pushing the bed around the room (briefly exposing the little stinker) but that freaked him out even more and I became concerned about the safety of my toes. I gave up and finally just tossed 2 milkbones into the crate and asked him again in my sweetest voice: Come get your cookies, we have things to do. It’s okay.

Somehow that worked. Mac squeezed his chubby self out from under the bed and happily retrieved his cookies; too confused and disoriented to object to what would come next. THE FULL SERVICE SHAMPOO.

I was a whole hour late for work yesterday on a day that I had actually gotten up two hours earlier than usual. I’m not advocating abuse but if there was a moment that I could see myself completely losing it on my dog, it was yesterday. I am glad I was able to stay calm, and clean up the messes without harming a hair on anyone’s head. The point is we all have crap thrown at us (sometimes literally and then tracked through the house and up a flight of stairs) it’s how you deal with the crap that matters, not the crap itself.

credits: images © Aimee McEwen