Hazardous Waste Removal

(Photo courtesy of 'The Hostess', and her dog Simon)

It must be rough having a dog in a cold snowy place. No matter the weather, you have to take the dog out to go poopies. At best you have a dog run right outside the door, but still you have to convince Fido that he must go out into that frozen wasteland, and that you won't forget him. That's why some people only have a cat, a pet that poops inside like civilized people do. The only problem is they don't flush.

While I was out in Palm Springs, California for five days, I called home every day to make sure Mark was feeding the dog and that he was giving Carlotta the cat, her pills. My biggest fear was that I would come home to a house full of dead or starving animals, because pet maintenance is not one of Mark's strong points. What was most disturbing, was when I called, and Mark told me, "I haven't had to scoop the cat box all weekend. Chandler has been eating the turds and is keeping it clean.". This is the one thing I've been having a hard time communicating to Mark, Chandler is not a garbage disposal! I knew that Mark would not actually scoop out the kitty litter. That's why I kept my visit out west down to five days. Any longer and I would have come home to a mountain of kitty poop, and that odor that you can only get in a crazy cat lady's house.

I try to clean the cat's poop box out at least once a day. If you leave it any longer it becomes a major excavation project, and requires more than the little pooper scooper that I normally use. It's not too much of a job, but as I am removing the little cat nuggets and urine clumps, I have to ask myself, is letting an animal take a crap inside my house really all that civilized?