Compare George, the Great Dane, with Buster, our Great Pain, who stands about 16 inches high and stretches to, oh, I’d say about 25 inches from nose to tail- if you can call that little nubbin a tail. Buster would like to sleep in a queen bed, but would really prefer a king- ours. Instead he sleeps on his own Buster-size bed, covered with his own Buster-size blanket. Buster eats approximately 18 pounds of food a month, an amount which until recently kept him nicely trim and satisfied. However, within the past few weeks he began to put on weight. Were we accidentally double feeding him? Was his lack of activity due to recent bad weather causing him to gain? Was he retaining water? Could he have a deadly, growing tumor? No, no and no. As it turns out, our little boy is what a dog groomer we know once referred to as a turd hound. That is to say, he'd begun supplementing his regular diet with clandestine visits to the cat box.
This penchant for late night snacking on kitty nut bars came as quite a surprise to his owners. After all, Boston Terriers are known as “America’s Gentlemen” due to their little black and white tuxedo coats and good manners. Sure he enjoyed eating the occasional stray chip, spilled cereal or dropped cookie as much as the next dog, but cat poop? It just wasn’t possible! Surely, after 10 years of being straight, Buster wasn’t becoming a poop junkie, sneaking around, one eye on the door while he chicken scratched through the Fresh Step for his next fix. Had he really sunk so low? Signs point to yes. After several days of standing silently by while Suzie got cat-cussed to high heaven for scattering her litter all over the laundry room floor, he was found one sad evening, head buried deep in her box, doing litter patrol. When he finally looked up, litter dropping from a muzzle crusted like a Drumstick ice cream cone with nut topping, we all knew the sad truth. Buster had been busted.
That night actually answered a lot of questions…like why he’d begun getting up so many times during the night and where he was going, why he looked guilty when he was anywhere near the laundry room, why we were constantly refilling his water bowl, and why, after 12 years, the cat had suddenly begun to lob so much litter out of her cat box. The veil lifted, the clouds parted, and there, in the crystalline stillness of that epiphanal moment, stood Buster- the turd hound.
It is said that men are not punished for their sins, but by them. Never was this truer than in the case of Buster. Shortly after his dirty little secret was unearthed, his clay filled stomach, already grown wider from nocturnal bingeing, began to swell. This was quickly followed by the onset of a severe case of constipation as well as a killer case of dry-mouth. After a couple of days of him languishing around, shaking like a crackhead going cold turkey, we finally hauled him to the rehabilitation clinic for families of animals suffering from chemical dependency (the vet) where we were assured that he would not continue to swell until he burst. Buster did, in fact, live, but not without going through some serious discomfort, not to mention the agony of having his supply of kitty crystal cut off quick, fast and in a hurry.
Oh, Buster. I can still remember the day we brought you home as a puppy, all cute and innocent and full of promise. We had such high hopes for our little boy. And now you're just another turd hound junkie. Just the same, you're still family. And you gotta love family, no matter what. As poet Julia Carney said:
Think gently of the erring:
Oh! do not thou forget,
However darkly stained by sin
He is thy brother yet.
While that may be true, it still doesn’t mean we’ll be kissing you on the lips any time soon.
