Crap Shoot

I haven't posted in a few days and a couple of you have wondered why. And by 'a couple of you' I mean: both of you that read this blog. And by 'both of you that read this blog' I mean: My wife and mother-in-law.
So what have I been up to? Well, Donna, since your daughter already knows, I'll fill you in as well: I've almost exclusively been cleaning up dog poop. Piles and piles of it. Exponentially more than any 25 pound puppy should be biologically capable of producing. It's astounding. She is openly defying the physiological maxim of 'what goes in must be equal to what comes out'.
I feed this animal only 3 and a half cups of Iams a day. But I clean up enough dog mess to fill up a 30-gallon trash bag a week.
Now according to all the pet ownership literature, dogs instinctually don't like to go where they sleep. (similarly, most humans don't either - but if they ever come out with a bed with an integrated toilet so I wouldn't have to get up at 3 a.m. every time I eat Tex-Mex, I would totally be an owner and a stockholder). Therefore we crate train our dog. Crate training is a simple concept. The dog likes her crate because it's like a den. Comfortable, safe, clean. It's effective for housebreaking and seperation anxiety issues. They won't relieve themselves in there because they have a natural aversion to soiling themselves.
Our new dog, however, is quite unnatural.
She absolutely loves to poop in her crate. She rolls in it. Splashes in it. Plays in it. Sculpts elaborate crapcastles out of it. Yet ironically, save for a handful of infrequent accidents, she hasn't gone on the carpet in days. In fact, she knows where to go outside in the yard. But she prefers to do her business in her little wire cage.
She'll be playing in the backyard for hours, then go on a walk and play inside with some toys. But leave her in the crate for 10 minutes and it looks as if her insides exploded all over the plastic tray. There she'll be with a big puppy smile on her face - happily sitting in her own waste as if it's a big down comforter. But all I ask for is a little consistency. In several ways.
So I get a roll of paper towels and get to work. I scrub and I fuss, I scrape and I cuss. It gets under my fingernails, on my shirt, in my hair. It's gross. The dog needs incontinence briefs.
And my wife can't help. With her low blood count due to the chemotherapy, she's prone to infection. Slopping through fecal matter probably isn't the best way to keep her trichinosis-free.
So you ask, is it worth it?
Well, I clean the mess, bathe the dog, dry her off and bring her inside. My wife, who on her bad days, is relegated to the couch in a mound of pillows and blankets, beams from ear to ear when she sees that fuzzy ball of fur coming her way. The pup bounds over to her and nuzzles with her snout. For a brief moment, while they cuddle and snuggle, I think the cancer is forgotten. The fatigue and the nausea and the omnipresent needles and pills fade away and are briefly replaced by a joyous reunion of a wet puppy nose and a great big smile.
So yeah, if it means that for a few minutes a day it can bring some much needed happiness into a household where happiness has been, at times as of late, in short supply - it's definitely worth it.