Handbags and Poobags: Tales of a Soho Boxer Dog (4 page)

Chapter 7: THE PROBLEM WITH POO

As this is a book about a dog we have to address the fact that he doesn’t only wee. He also poos. And so, what follows are some thoughts and stories about poo! Some of it might be too much information (well it is about defecation). Sorry.

But let’s start with a funny poo story before we get into the real sticky stuff... 

Basil needs to keep an eye on you when he is crouching to do his business, he can be a bit sensitive and maybe he feels vulnerable whilst he is in such a position? I don’t know. Anyway, Patrick was out having a late night trot around the block with the boy when he started to turn his familiar, crouching circle in front of a parked black taxi. As soon as Basil got going the door of a nearby house opened up and a glamorous couple comprising of a well-known film and TV actor and his equally famous girlfriend (who lived in the cobbled street behind our house) came out and got into the cab without seeing what was squatted in the dark in front of it.

The cab flicked on its headlights to reveal a crouching Basil directly in front of them and barring their way.  He was trying to evacuate what turned out to be a particularly hard to shift poo, brightly lit up in all his shaking glory and staring sadly and desperately at his Dad. For what seemed like an eternity Basil anxiously tried to go about his business while Patrick hopped from one foot to another willing him to finish, with this illustrious audience staring out at him from the cab, obviously keen to be on their way but unable to drive down the narrow street.

Eventually, business done, Patrick stepped up to clean up the poo - which of course was now all between the cobbles - and with a nod and a shrug to the cab to show that he had finished they were finally off. I am sure they will never remember the sight of our poor dog picked out in their headlights and holding up their cab, but I know my husband will never forget it. 

I saw the aforementioned actor at an awards ceremony a few months later and in a drunken moment thought seriously about going up to him and asking if he remembered it and to introduce myself as the dog’s mother and apologise. I thought we might be able to have a chummy laugh about it, maybe end up becoming friends, invite each other to neighbourly dinner parties, that kind of thing. Thankfully sanity prevailed and I steered clear of him. He is now one of the most popular UK actors working in Hollywood and his wife stars in the biggest UK film franchise ever. We will be reminded of Basil’s ‘incident’ forever!

Picking up poo is a minefield (hopefully not literally) – there are many things to consider and remember. Never ever forget your poobags! I have had many a nervous journey across town without a bag on me, hurrying Basil along until we get to the safety of home and garden, and I have actually dragged him away from a few potential poo crouches because I didn’t have a bag on me.
‘Suck it back up boy’

The reasons for picking up poo are twofold – you don’t want to leave the unhygienic, smelly things lying around for others to step in (for those of us who have stepped in dog poo wearing high heeled sandals, you know the kind of bad karma you wish on those who left it there? Well I don’t want that on my head). But also it’s hard to take the shame when you are given dirty looks by those who see you leaving those little pavement presents behind. I would much prefer to take the embarrassment of stooping down to pick up than look like an uncaring cow with no thought of keeping the streets clean.  If he does manage to squeeze one out while I am without a poobag, I will make a big show of looking for one in my pockets with over elaborate shoulder shrugs to make it clear to anyone watching that I usually do have them on me. Honest.

Most people pop the scooped poop back into their handbags or pockets, I just can’t bring myself to put the little bags into my handbag now. I used to, but gave up when I got my first Marc Jacobs, there was something sacrilegious about it, I just couldn’t. I didn’t mind people seeing the tell-tale black poobag in the one hand, as long as the new leather tote was clean and pristine in the other. Even the best tied up poobag could always spell danger and MJ doesn’t deserve that. And the new Burberry hasn’t even been seen by the dog let alone been taken out on a walk.

You see the danger of not carrying a used poobag in your hand until you find a bin to put it in is that you might just forget that you have stashed it somewhere. So the next time you start rummaging around your handbag or pocket you could end up clasping your fingers around a forgotten, old bag of poo. Or imagine if one had leaked? It has happened! 

So, remember your poobags! But if you don’t have any on you when out with the dog keep an eye out for handy carrier bags or discarded crisp packets – anything – just don’t get caught short. I sometimes forget to top up my handbag or just expect my husband to have some on him (which should never be done). But I soon learnt the importance of making sure I had something suitable with me… The hard way.

One evening Basil started his familiar circling just outside a packed Soho pub on the way home. It was sunny and the streets were thronged with happy after-work drinkers. Quite alone, a fear gripped me as I knew I didn’t have any bags.  Thrilled to see a squatting dog the drinkers decided to serenade us both with fun, loud songs about dogs and generally cheering on the poo process, ensuring that everyone in that busy street knew that my dog was doing his business!

After depositing a sizeable amount on the street Basil started skipping around on the end of his lead and putting on a show. I was reaching desperately around in my handbag for anything that would suffice (and once you start looking like you are going to pick up you can’t just give it up as a bad job half way through and walk off because that’s even more embarrassing) eventually I found a tissue.  It tried valiantly to do the job but it just wasn’t designed for such a purpose. It managed about half, the rest I had to do by hand. Eventually even the singing drinkers had to turn away as I helplessly mopped the pavement with the useless bit of thin, ripped paper…

Without going into too much detail I sat on the bus on the way home with tears in my eyes and some scrapings of Basil’s deposits under my fingernails. I really love my dog but some days that love is tested.

Basil, like many canines, once he has evacuated his bowels loves to just skip around to celebrate the fact. He goes into a kind of ecstasy! As soon as the last little bit hits the tarmac Basil makes it his mission to get as far away from the pile as soon as possible and make as many leaps and spins as he can while doing it. Sadly it means that while you are trying to pick it up he is pulling you around in his attempts to get away. It makes life as a responsible dog owner very difficult and now I usually wait for the first flush of excitement to die down before I bend down, or take him off his lead which means you have to keep one eye on him to check he isn’t running away and one eye on the poo.

But please never attempt to copy the time I decided to cut out the middle man (the road) and get Basil to go directly into a bag. One day he was taking a bit of time to do his business and as I stood behind him with a poobag ready I had a thought – why not open the bag up under him so the poo goes straight in? No picking it up off the floor, what a great idea. I crouched behind my crouching dog and as I waited for the poo to drop into my ready bag Basil became so freaked out at my proximity he bunny-hopped away from me still in the poo position. As I reached forward to try and catch his efforts I fell forward placing my hands straight in it as Basil ran away leaving loads of little dollops behind him. So not only did I now have to pick up lots of poos but my hands were covered in it. Maybe not the best idea I have ever had?

I have plenty of terrible poo stories (such as the £2 coin that fell out of my purse and rolled down the road and into a new wet one – what are the chances?) and I won’t go into all of them here, but a friend of mine has a good one: while walking her dog in the dark she bent down and wrapped the bag around a cold, hard lump. Now there are many horrid things that can happen when you are dealing with poo (see above) but picking up an unknown dog’s cold, old poo? That’s just the worst! 

A couple more essential things you need to know before you stoop to scoop the poop (and you surely don’t need me to explain the reasons why but believe me I’ve learnt from personal experience):

• never wear a lovely long fringed scarf on a dog walk, certainly never anything made from trailing (unwashable and expensive) cashmere
  
• always put your gloves, phone, keys, purse, dog lead in your pocket before you bend down, never just hold loosely in your hand. You don’t want to be picking any of those out of a freshly laid turd
  
• take your heavy shoulder bag off beforehand, otherwise it will swing right into that poo
  
• if it’s a particularly windy day then make sure you have hold of that poobag securely before you go to grip the mess - you really don’t want the bag blowing off down the street before you close your fingers together
  
• If your dog has diarrhoea then it is best to just walk away, I know it’s terrible but there is nothing you can do about liquid poo. I once tried to unsuccessfully scrape some up with a carrier bag but just smeared it all over the pavement. I can only suggest you stand well clear (it’s hell to get out of suede) and try to position your dog over a drain if at all possible.  Otherwise just hold your head up high, walk on and pray for rain
  

But it’s not all bad.  My husband makes the best of it by describing the plastic bags filled with fresh poo as ‘
little hand warmers’
perfect for keeping your fingers nice and toasty - ok on a cold day, not so nice on a hot one.

There is also something empowering about holding a bag of dog poo. Especially walking around some areas of North London, there are lots of scary people about and dog theft rates are rising all the time. I feel that even those who wouldn’t be scared by me approaching with a knife or weapon of any sort (as they probably had their own) would run if faced with a flying open bag of fresh doggy do. Like most dog owners both me and my husband would resort to any measure to protect our boy from dog-nappers. It’s just something comforting to hold on to while walking the dog late at night!

Another thing I have started thinking about on dog walks concerns poo I see on the street. Yes sadly not everyone goes to such lengths to ensure their dog’s dinner is not left around for everyone to step in and I see a lot of it while walking about. In fact I can’t ignore it now. After Basil’s last tummy upset and an onslaught of the most terrible diarrhoea I became obsessed with him having good solid stools. But when I found myself looking at other dog’s droppings and thinking: ‘
now that’s a good one, I wish Basil would do one that looked like that
’ I knew I had probably gone too far. I would like to think that there is at least one other dog owner in the world who has suffered ‘turd envy’, but I fear I may be the only one?

Chapter 8: THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD EDUCATION

People were keen to inform us that we had to ‘
get him trained’
and that ‘
a trained dog was a good dog
’ etc, and as we were keen to be responsible owners we set about buying training manuals and DVDs (or got given them as presents).  We had about four books by the bed at one point – and all of them had different techniques and opinions on dog-training. I got about half way through all of them.  But not before trying out something from them all – and soon the bemused Basil was being shoved off the sofa, having his meals after ours, not being cuddled for days at a time, being ignored on arrival home and having endless commands barked at him in order to get him to sit, lie down, roll over and stay.

Patrick’s response was that; while it was good he would obey us if we needed him to - if we had to dispense with cuddles, titbits from the table and joyous welcomes at the door, then what was the point of having a dog? Despite trying desperately to instil some puppy law and order in the house I had to kind of agree with him. And now my enduring image of Basil’s response to this flurry of activity on the training front is a set of dusty books under the bed, all of which had been defiantly chewed – his own little toothy protest.

I’d seen a programme that showed how you could train your dog to jump through a hoop in just a few lessons. I eagerly purchased a hoop and after getting Basil used to it – at first he reacted like I had bought a nuclear warhead into the house – spent literally hours and hours and hours trying to teach him to launch himself spectacularly through the hoop held high in the air (while I imagined admiring friends watching wide eyed). He eventually managed to step through the hoop while I held it on the ground, and only after a huge amount of treats had been thrown through it. My dreams of a performing dog sadly, it seemed, were not going to come true.  If anyone shouts ‘
jump
’ near Basil (or a word that sounds even remotely like it) now he still looks round nervously to see if I am advancing on him with a large hoop.

One thing we did agree on was ‘Puppy Classes’. We knew socialisation was important - mainly to boost his confidence - but also because I liked to think of it as a kind of finishing school for good dogs seeking an entrance into Society. Like a canine debutantes’ ball! So we enrolled him in the weekly classes held at our local vets.  This was an hourly session with a tough but fair trainer and a lovely veterinary nurse. It was a combination of the practical (training and socialising) and theory (questions and experience exchanging) and Basil and I loved them.

The best part was seeing Basil interact with other young puppies – and of course it was fun for me because who wouldn’t enjoy spending an hour surrounded by gambolling pups? There was the hard, but pretty, Staffordshire Bull Terrier bitch, the aloof (owner too) pampered King Charles Spaniel, the massive, uncontrollable Alsatian (who had been puncturing his gentle owners arms) and the tiny French Bulldog with a patch over one eye, full of character and appropriately called Marcel who became a particular friend.  Basil romped with all of them and I constantly filmed his efforts to make friends on my phone to send to Patrick (sometimes instead of listening to what was being taught).  Of course it broke my heart when he was left out of a particularly fun wrestle or had been bested in fight – much like a mum watching her first born interacting at school. I actually found myself saying out loud: ‘
come on play nice’
as I tried to pull the rollicking pups apart. But it is all part of the puppy process of learning and growing up.

I was meant to be working from home at the same time as attending Puppy Classes and I could see the other attendees looking at me oddly as I set out my mobile phone and Blackberry on the table at the beginning of each lesson. It made me laugh sometimes that I was responding to an email about a particularly important matter while trying to entice Basil to come back at my call with a smelly liver treat. 

Sometimes Patrick would drop in half way through if he could get away from work – just to see how the boy was doing – looking smart enough in a very casual room to prompt the trainer to quip ‘
ignore
him, that’s my lawyer here to discuss some owner complaints’
. Poor Basil would be so excited to see his dad his concentration would go right out of the window.

One particularly memorable lesson involved learning basic medical skills, to help your dog if he has been in an accident or became ill. Basil was chosen as the test dog to be bandaged up in front of the class. I knew it would be a disaster. And it was. After allowing the kindly vet nurse to get the bandages round his head (obviously under duress) he managed to get the end of it in his mouth and while she was tying up one end he was busy unwinding the other looking like a maniacal canine mummy. He was distraught at having a bandage wrapped around his paw and wouldn’t sit still long enough to display how it was done. Soon he was off running around the room with bandages flying – like a medical version of the Andrex puppy.

We both learnt lots at our Puppy Classes and Basil soon grew in confidence on his walks and got used to people and other dogs. He still sits and lies down very nicely when asked and I still have a huge fondness for French Bulldogs.

A trained pet is a wonder! We share very little of the same gene pool and obviously don’t speak the same language so I am constantly amazed that a dog will follow me around without a lead, come when called and sit when asked. I am sure that we are actually communicating or maybe it’s just ‘cupboard love’? I don’t mind what is going on just as long as I look cool and in command as I wander around the neighbourhood with a compliant Basil trotting along behind me. And people will stop and stare when Patrick is controlling him with a toy ball, Basil will roll over, run and come back, sit down, stand up, make you a cup of tea, if you wave a small red ball in front of his face.

Well done. I love you boy!