Yesterday, during my daily walk with Starbuck, we had stopped for a moment so she could sniff something along the path up to Terwilliger, the scenic parkway up he hill from us. I was lost in thought while listening to music through my earbuds, but during the silence between songs, my attention turned to the all-too-familiar slurping sounds of Starbuck licking up grotesqueness.
I looked down and sure enough, she had found a pile of doggie (I hope) diarrhea. I immediately yanked her away and regretted zoning out like that. I led us up the hill the rest of the way to the Terwilliger Parkway, pulling Starbuck along like a giant purse full of coins.
Out in the open, up on Terwilliger, I had picked up the pace to move into a brisk trot. It was an uncharicteristically pleasant day here in Portland, so everyone had migrated up to the parkway to get their sun and exercise, like a bunch of heat seeking zombies. Up ahead, I saw a small group of metro-dudes out doing maintenance on their beautiful and perfect bodies (that they were undoubtably born with) - tall bros with symetrical faces, perfect hair, abs, biceps, and $300 jogging outfits to show it all off, the sort of dudes who have my boyfriend convinced that if we just worked out in cute outfits, we'd end up looking just like them. I tried to seem cool with my labored breathing and mismatched outfit. I was debating whether to continue the trot or not when SB started pulling back - an usual move for her, since she prefers to lead. I looked down and she was still slurping, contorting her head to the side in a bizarre struggle. I kneeled down to her face to face, and to my horror and shock, discovered she had brought some of her earlier snack along with her. Stuck to her beard was a dangling glob of terd, light brown with a hint of orange like a big dollop of peanut butter. My first instinct was to yell, "no no no no no no no" in a desperate plea with the gods to alleviate this disaster. The gods were unresponsive, so I grabbed a stick, hoping to knock the glob from her beard. I was able to get a small portion of the crap onto the stick, only Starbuck assumed I was merely aiding her in getting the crap from her beard to her mouth. I shouted, "It's SHIT, Starbuck!" as the group of metro-dudes arrived in our proximity - their perfectly positioned eyes gleaming down in disgust and judgement as I seemed to feed my dog a terd on a stick.
Defeated and humiliated, I stood up and continued our walk regardless of the fecal fiasco on her face. I didn't look at SB again, but between songs, I could still hear the slurping, so I knew the issues wasn't resolved. Once we arrived home, I didn't see any more crap in her beard, so I gave her face a quick once-over with a washcloth. We didn't kiss or talk or snuggle for the rest of the evening - until my boyfriend came home, gave her some kisses, and remarked how her breathe smelled like crap. That's when I said, "oh yeah... I almost forgot..."
