The Dog Poop Dilemma

A few nights ago, as I often do when I'm home, I took my dog Scout with me for a run. We run on a paved path that sits parallel to a major street. We usually run 1.5 miles and then turn around and come back.

I bring bags with me whenever I run or walk Scout, and he usually goes within the first five minutes or so. But that night, he waited until we were a good 3/4 mile from the starting point. I bagged up the excrement and set it on the side of the path, planning to pick it up on the way back. We got to our turnaround point, and on the way back, I realized that if I were to pick up the bag I had left, I would have to run with it for 3/4 mile. Being an only marginally good citizen in that instance, I left the bag sitting on the side of the path and finished the run.

The next evening, I took Mali, our older dog, for a walk. I decided to try to find the bag Scout and I left the previous night, so Mali and I walked along the same path. Sure enough, about 3/4 mile in, I saw the bag sitting right where I had left it the previous night! I picked it up and carried it back to our starting point, where I found a trash can and disposed of it. So yes, I left the poop in a bag on the side of the road for 24 hours, but I eventually helped it find its way to the trash.

Mali's Shenanigans

My dog Mali is 12 now. As she declines, I have started taking more videos of the silly things she does that I take for granted, because I want to remember her long after she is gone. Here are two recent ones:

During summer 2011 my parents left me home alone for a week while my brother was at a camp and they were on a vacation just the two of them. During that week, Mali found some weird bugs in the yard at night and ate a ton of them. I figured she wiped out the whole species (at least from our yard) because I hadn't seen them since… until she found another one the other night!

Mali and the Crunchy Bug

Mali loves carrots! Listen closely and you can hear the crunch sound as she chews them up. So cute!

My Goofball Dogs

Tonight I took the dogs outside to go to the bathroom before bed and a funny incident unfolded. Mali, age 12, largely vision impaired and diagnosed with Cushing's, was peeing in the rocks where she always goes. Scout, the 7-year-old, likes to pee on top of Mali's pee, I guess to mask her scent with his. Mali finished peeing and stepped away, and Scout immediately began peeing on the spot where Mali had gone. After Mali uses the facilities, she likes to kick the rocks back to cover up the spot. So while Scout was peeing over the spot where Mali peed, Mali started kicking the rocks, not knowing they were going straight toward Scout! This startled Scout, who bolted away from the scene while I burst out laughing at the whole situation.

Oh My Gosh, You're So Grown Up!

I was browsing Facebook the other day when I came across a new album of pictures posted by URJ Camp Newman where I went to camp for three summers as a kid. Newman is probably the most common Jewish camp for youth from my temple to attend, so it's not unusual for me to see people I know in the camp's brochures and online albums. I was looking at session photos when I noticed a familiar face. However, I was surprised to see this child, whom I had worked with as a third grader when I aided in religious school during high school, in a picture for a session I knew was for middle schoolers. How could it be? The last time I saw this kid he was 9 years old!

I thought back and noted that he was in my class when I was a junior in high school. I am now entering my junior year of college. I realized that this boy is going to be in seventh grade this fall. Seventh grade! When he was in the class I helped teach, he was just learning the Hebrew letters and vowels. Now, sometime during seventh grade, he will stand in front of the entire congregation and celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah. Although he has awhile to go before having the rights and responsibilities of an adult in the legal sense, when he turns 13 he will be viewed as an adult in the eyes of the Jewish community. And this is my third grader we're talking about!

When I was younger (and even now, sometimes), people would come up to me and tell me I was so big and so tall and so grown up since the last time they saw me. Half the time I would have no idea who the person talking to me even was because I had been so young the last time we met. The funny thing is, I find myself doing the exact same thing to kids now. It was about eight years ago that I worked in my first class as a religious school aide. It was a kindergarten class, and now the kids are 13 and entering eighth grade! It never occurred to me that this would eventually happen to me, but I guess this is what you get when you work with kids for this many years!