vituperation

September 30, 2002

…this is a continuation.

The dog quivered. The kid looked panicked. And me?

I had time to briefly wonder what I’d signed on for with this whole volunteering thing, then Mary showed up and took charge. While the rest of us carried pointer puppies into the store, Mary took the bloody shit-spattered dog into the grooming area and cleaned him up. The blood was nothing serious, as it turns out, just a worm problem (no, I don’t remember which one, but it wasn’t heart-, round-, or tape-worms) that can apparently be easily fixed with the right pill.

He cleaned up nicely, and ended up being the first animal adopted.

We set up all the animals in the middle of the store and waited. Before long, people started showing up to see them. Tall people, short people, fat people, thin people, black people, white people, Asian people, Middle Eastern people, old people, young people, handicapped people, ugly people, beautiful people, city people, country people. People.

Hell, there might have even been some Canadian people, for all I know.

Very shortly our little roped off area was filled with people. Mostly they were interested in the puppies who were separated into two pens, three to a pen. The way we set them up was such: First, we spread a thick layer of newspaper on the floor in each of the areas we’d decided to use. Next, we set up the folding pens, which were each eight connected pieces of fence that swivelled along their individual connecting lines, like an accordion. We built each pen as a square, two sections to a side, on top of the newspaper, and put the puppies in them.

I knew the newspaper was to protect the floor from puppy mishaps -

Note: Puppies are some peeing fools. They piddle every three minutes, it seems.

Note #2: An idle mind thinking about piddling puppies can make an amusing parody of The Who’s song “Fiddle About” - a song about child molestation from Tommy - called “Piddle About”.

Note #3: When in a place that is loaded with small children, it is probably best not to stand around whistling said parody, as parents tend to think you’re whistling the original.

- but I wasn’t quite sure how we’d be keeping the pen area clean. Mary solved that problem for me. She was talking to someone interested in one of the adult dogs, deep into the conversation, when one of the puppies next to her stopped playing for a moment. It squinched up its face, hunkered down, and loosed a stream of poo that piled up on the newspaper the same way chocolate soft serve ice cream does in the little bowls you get down at the all-you-can-eat buffet.

You’re welcome for that visual.

Someone said, “ooooooh!” in disgust, which got Mary’s attention. Without missing a beat in her conversation she reached over to the stack of newspaper sections on top of the big dog cage and grabbed a single section. She unfolded it and draped it over the poo, hardly even looking at it and talking the whole time.

I was not so lucky.

Not ten minutes later I was standing beside the other pen of puppies when one dropped his own load on the newspaper-covered floor. Following Mary’s lead, I jumped over to the stack of newspapers and quickly grabbed a section, which I unfolded on my way back over to the side of the pen.

The puppies sensed me moving toward them and as one they bounded across the pen toward me. They got to the edge and all three started dancing around on their hind legs, hoping for a pat on the head as I bent over the edge of the pen to put the paper on the poo.

And the inevitable happened.

In a dreamy movie-like slow motion I saw the big goony back foot of one of the pups squelch solidly into the not-so-firm puppy poo. With an almost clinical detachment I saw poo squeeze up between each of his toes, just before he pranced his away away from me, leaving poo prints in a trail around the pen. In short order, all three of the dogs managed to dance through the poo - one of them with three of his four feet - and by the time I got the paper down there were poo marks all over the pen.

And all over my arm, because they jumped on me the minute I bent down to position the paper. The next several minutes were spent cleaning puppy paws and my arms. Oh, and my shirt, which got a couple of poo prints on it, too. And repapering most of the pen, of course, all the while fighting puppies who think you only want to play.

Really, it’s stunning how far one little pile of shit will go when it’s spread thin.

I helped as best I could for four hours, answering questions when I knew the answer and deferring to Mary or one of the other volunteers when I didn’t. I walked the adult dogs and cleaned up their poo when necessary, I cleaned litterboxes, and I fetched water for the animals. I played with all the dogs and cats, and worked as a go-between between people and cages, handing animals back and forth. All in all four animals (two dogs and two cats) were adopted, and the two remaining kittens were taken in by the nice ladies from the no-kill shelter (for which I now also volunteer, feeding and cleaning up after all the kitties in the store on Monday mornings) so they wouldn’t be killed by animal control.

While playing with the animals was a good thing, having all sorts of interactions with people was even better.