Thursday, February 5, 2009

Pissing and Moaning

Like most New Englanders, I try to dedicate a portion of each day—even if it’s only 20-30 minutes—to complaining about the weather. This winter has already delivered such a wealth of meteorological misery that the only challenge has been deciding where to begin: the forty-bajillion inches of snow, the butt-numbing arctic cold, the skating-rink sidewalks, or maybe even the freakish Wizard-of-Oz winds that tore the gate off our fence.


Even our cold-loving dog Hugo seems ready for spring. I notice this most when I take him outside for the final time each night. This would normally be a two-minute jaunt, but with everything covered in hard, iced-over snow, Hugo and I end up slipping around the neighborhood for a half-hour while he searches for an acceptable place to empty his bladder.

The upside of these nightly trips is that, at least until the hypothermia sets in, I get some quiet time to think. Although, I pretty much always end up thinking the same two things: “Why won’t you just GO already?” followed soon after by, “Seriously…WHAT DOES IT FREAKING MATTER WHERE YOU PEE???”

The rest of the year, this is not a problem. At some point during our walk, Hugo will step into the grassy strip along the curb and start into his “tinkle trot,” which closely resembles a gymnast approaching the vault: his pace quickens, and after a dozen swift strides, he stops and strikes a regal pose while spattering the grass below. When he’s finished, he sniffs the air approvingly, and then steps squarely into his own puddle as he departs the scene.

But there’s no grass to be found now, Hugo WILL NOT pee on the sidewalk itself (it’s a canine thing), and the snow is piled so high everywhere that he can’t even walk through it. He still tries though, starting his trot on the sidewalk and only heaving himself up into the curbside snowbank at the very last second. His momentum carries him forward for a few more awkward steps, his feet crunching down through the snow’s icy crust and sinking him up to his belly. Eventually, he’s just stuck there, limbs ensnared, and he gives up. He looks up at me, and I swear I can hear his thoughts (which are naturally in haiku format):

Winter exhausts me.
Why do we live here again?
I blame you, human.

And so we walk on, with me trailing Hugo and repeating, “Hurry up…hurry up…hurry up,” a command that we started using when he was a puppy. Whenever he peed on his own, we’d whisper “hurry up,” gradually conditioning him to associate the words with the act.

I do worry, however, that I’ve now spent so much time saying “hurry up” when Hugo is merely preparing to pee that I might’ve changed its meaning for him. Maybe Hugo now thinks that “hurry up” means “Browse for a pee-spot, but be extremely selective.” For all I know, he might be desperately trying to hold it the whole time because I won’t give the right command, which he now thinks is something like, “Holy Freaking Crap, it’s about time!”

As it is, I usually have to go pretty badly after about fifteen minutes of this. I think all of the psychic energy that I pour into convincing Hugo to pee ends up backfiring and setting my own bladder off. And so now we’re off in some far corner of the neighborhood, Hugo still hasn’t done his thing, and I’m doing my own version of the tinkle trot to stave off incontinence.

I will admit that I’ve been tempted to go outside somewhere, but the houses in our neighborhood are very close-set, and there’s not much cover to be found (aside from the snowbanks anyway). So far, I’ve never given in to this impulse, but it does make me wonder why people are so weird about this stuff: they don’t think twice about a dog peeing on the street, but if they see another person doing it, they just call the police. I guess humans can be pretty picky about where they go too.

5 comments:

  1. This makes me even more thankful that Diesel just walks up to me and stares until I let him out then he stares at the door until it opens and he comes in and gets a cookie. It must be pretty cool from his perspective, stare at the human and he lets me out, stare at the door and it opens. I want to be a dog.

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  2. I wish that I could just let Hugo loose in the yard, but that won't be work until I can get the gate replaced, which will probably happen around the same time that the skunks start coming out at night too (Hugo still has no idea that skunks really don't want to play with him).

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  3. That haiku is priceless. I'd love to see a whole book of Haikus by Hugo. Each left page can be a poem and each facing page can be photos of his various looks of contempt, dismay, and eventual joy to see the grass again.

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  4. Yes! Maybe that will be the next release from Hysterical Publishing... Hugo-ku perhaps?

    But then what to do about Hugo's ego if he outsells me?

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  5. Hmmm... good question. He might want a couch for himself.

    But then again, you'll be cooking - er, doing - the books, right?

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