The Daffodil Incident

The Daffodil Incident

I should have paid closer attention when I came home last night, but I’d been to a party and I figured the dogs had just been hanging out downstairs on the guest bed, because, well, it’s the guest bed. This morning, however, it was clear something was up. Raymond had been scratching at the door intermittently during the night, which was odd because he’s three, and long past not being able to make it through the night, and when I got up at seven-thirty, he bolted out the door in a way that isn’t typical for him.

I was lettting Owen in through the back door (they’re very spoiled and some mornings go in and out and in and out — I should crack down but it’s not like I’m so busy inventing a cure for cancer that I can’t get up and let them in and out and in and out) when I smelled it. Something bad had happened in the basement. There were sad little puddles of doggy-diarrhea down there. Careful puddles on the linoleum, where they could be mopped up. Poor Raymond. No wonder he’d wanted to go out all night long.

So, I got the mop, the paper towels, the bucket, the Pine Sol and cleaned it up. Not fun, but what can you do? Animals (and people) we love sometimes leak noxious fluids. Because we love them we try not to throw up and just clean up the mess.

It wasn’t until later that I saw what the problem had been. I’d left the dogs in the yard when I went to Maryanne’s to celebrate her birthday — it was a mild night and they’d been cooped up much of the day. I thought they’d like being outside.

It looked like a tag-team operation. There was a deep hole in the front flower bed, a hole that bore the distinctive marks of a manic-Owen digging operation. And an errant daffodil bulb. We’ve had a little trouble with this, and it looked like Owen had done the digging and then offered up a daffodil bulb to Raymond — Ray, who will eat almost anything. Ray who isn’t the brightest dog we’ve ever known. And since daffodils are toxic to dogs, we had a night of furtive dog puddles downstairs, followed by a morning of the saddest, ashamed-of-himself dog one’s ever seen.

He seems recovered tonight — and tomorrow I’m going to spread some mulch in hopes of smothering the siren smell of daffodil bulbs.

One thought on “The Daffodil Incident

  1. (Chuckle) Reminds me of our own “butter wrapper incident”, two dogs back. You’ve gotta love ’em, though (and clean up after them from time to time). Charlotte, I have to ask…did that hambone ever get turned into soup?

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