If I gave this a descriptive title, you wouldn't read it

Hmmmph. The appliance guy called yesterday afternoon to reschedule because his helper's kid was sick and he needs 2 people to install the vent hood. Which is fine, he is coming today between 6 and 7 so I wouldn't have had to take off work early again or anything. Except that the Truly Nolen guy didn't show up last night. I called them this morning and the lady said she tried to call my cell phone yesterday to say he wouldn't make it and reschedule - but there were no missed calls or voice mails. She said voice mail never picked up. So now it is today at 5:00, which means I'll have to take off early again.

That's all pretty boring, what else do I have... let's see... oh. OH. Ugh. You'll love this. Not. It's kind of disgusting. Last night once I finally conceded that Truly Nolen wasn't coming, I asked the kid to let the dogs in. She opened the door and they all came bounding inside, except for Abby. She called and called, and finally I went and called, nothing. She hasn't been getting out since I fixed that one spot in the fence, but I went out front to check anyway, nothing. Back out to the back, called again, and finally spotted her in a corner of the yard, in her "taking a shit" stance.

Abby doesn't like it when you watch her going to the bathroom. I mean, not that I intentionally want or try to do so, but if she catches you looking her way while she's going, she'll give you this pained expression and if you keep looking, she'll stop and move somewhere else. The same dog who will shamelessly gobble cat poop is modest about shitting in the yard, go figure.

Anyway. I spotted her in her stance, so naturally I looked away, and waited. And waited. And waited. Ultimately it became clear that was some sort of problem.

She was having difficulty because... well, how do I describe this? She had globs of shit stuck all over her butt and it was "in the way" and she couldn't push any more out.

I told you this was disgusting.

Additionally she had managed to walk through the muddiest part of the yard and her feet were completely caked with mud.

Here's where the fun begins. She was a little distressed, so I petted her and tried to calm her, and told her I would be right back (yes, I talk to my dogs, all the time, what about it???). I went in and started running a bath. Then I tried to carry her into the bathroom without any part of her touching me, which of course was impossible. The minute her feet hit the water, it turned brown with mud. I had to work the clumps of mud out of her paws and from under belly.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to grab some of those disposable latex gloves I keep around for really disgusting jobs like, oh, say, disposing of rats, and THIS. If you know anything about bathing a dog, you know that you had better have everything you need when you put the dog in the tub because there's no going off and leaving it and expecting it not to jump out of the tub and streak across the house. Sooooo.....

I'm not even going to type it out loud but you get the idea. Fortunately I have a shower-sprayer thingy which helped tremendously. But then... I had pulled the plug because the tub was getting too full and the water was so dirty, and big balls of poop clogged the drain up so the water wasn't draining at all. (gag gag) I put the sprayer on the single powerful stream, turned the water on full hot, and had to kind of melt them down the drain. I wasn't about to dig them out barehanded as I probably should have done. I'm off to Target at lunch for some Liquid Plummer, just in case. Hopefully it comes in scented.

So Abby is finally clean, and I am soaking wet and not smelling so nice myself. I wrapped her in a towel, changed clothes, and went and sat with her on the couch. She was shaking like a leaf. I didn't know if there was something wrong and she needed to go to the vet or if it was a "one time freaky thing" and she was shivering from being wet. Eventually she warmed up and when I got up for something, she jumped down and got a drink of water. She seemed fine. Until I caught her in the shit stance, in the house. Too late. A little watery turd came out, that was it. Ok, not so bad. Cleaned it up, sat back down on the couch, she jumped up. As she was turning around in her circle to settle down, I heard a little watery fart and then a tiny blob plopped out onto the couch. Ewwww. Fortunately I have leather couches so it was easy to clean. I took her outside, nothing else happened, and she's seemed fine ever since.

Aren't you so glad I told that story? Welcome to my life. Woo freakin' hoo. The most important thing though is that Abby is ok. I guess you can indeed endure anything for your kids.