He is a storyboard artist for Disney. He is living his childhood dream, and we all witnessed the work getting there. He was always alone with his craft growing up. I try to not use absolutes unless absolutely necessary, and that is an absolutely necessary absolute to use.
He is working on a storyboard, and his character works in gig economy. I didn’t even know what gig economy was until he asked me to share highlights of my stories for his research in developing the character. I thought he came to a “right place”. He said the dirtier the better. I remembered:
Beau’s Mom warned me Beau poops about five times on a walk. She provided me bags, but I’d share my poop bags for Beau with her. My goal was to get all 5 poops in one bag. Some days I just let that goal go and used multiple bags. It was one day I reached my goal to learn to let that goal go. The bag I had attached to a carabiner on my utility belt holding Beau’s five poops had torn. I wasn’t the wiser until I was standing at the gas pump. I had just thought I stepped in dog poop and would clean my shoes when I got home, but I turned at just the right angle to refuel to notice the poop was down my leg. Good thing it was my last walk of the day, I was 10 minutes from home, and I didn’t even have the option of air conditioner in my car. I had to roll down the windows. I managed not to get any poop on my seat even in the unknowing. I guess I’m kinda ninja that way.
“ZODIN”, Zoe and Odin, a pair of German Shephards was my most dirty job! I saw Zodin MTWTHF. Zoe was a puppy when I met her, and she was working on squashing a roundworm infection. I had to pull roundworms out of her butt that only made it a third of the way out. That was the grossest thing I ever did dogwalking. I gloved my hand with a poop bag.
Zodin’s poops were something, so I spared the owners’ trash bin and drove the bags of poop I’d secure in grocery bags to the gas station trash on the way to my next walk. My car at the time was a brand new hatchback. One time, I forgot the poop trash overnight. I don’t know why I even thought to be that hospitable, maybe because they were Air Force veterans and pretty hardcore medical professionals, but I quit that hospitality after I forgot the bag overnight in my car. Matt never knew I did that, I’m glad he still doesn’t. He has enough material to give me a hard time about just on the day. He doesn’t keep up with my blogs, so I’m still safe. (July 2, 2022 Matt really does live these blogs with me. He said he already knew. He is very choosy in what he gives me a hard time about, again, I remember this.)
Zodin was a nervous pair. Odin often had diarrhea. One time I didn’t make it to his appointment in time, and there were frisbee-sized splotches of diarrhea all over the marble tile at the entry. That was my second most gross thing I did as a dogwalker, cleaning up marble-cold diarrhea off the floor. I still hadn’t invested in disposable gloves. Poop bags were my go-to gloves.
Zodin’s parents grew weary in cleaning muddy paws after a rainstorm, so they invested in artificial turf. I’d lug the industrial strength hose up the hill, and wash Zodin’s poop away to help maintain the turf. Even the poops they’d make after I had just cleaned the poops they had made and lugged the hose back down and curled it into a nice pile. I couldn’t walk away from the sun-dried splats made over the weekend while I had the hose up there either. Cleaning crusty poop is a dirty job, too.
Zodin’s Mom wanted an aquarium, so she got one. She wanted fish and frogs, so she got frogs, too. She asked if everyday I could check the aquarium to make sure the frogs were still alive because she was a new fish owner. One afternoon, I retrieved a floating frog. I left it in a damp Kleenex so she could bury it.
One day she got a shrimp. The shrimp was translucent. She asked for updates on how alive the shrimp was being. It was a hardy shrimp who liked to hide in pesky places.
And then one day Zodin’s mom got a cat named Frida. Frida liked to take fresh bathroom breaks in her litter before I cleaned it.
Then there was “Gizmo”. I called an ambulance one morning for “Gizmo”. She was having a panic attack, but she thought her heart was giving out on her. “Gizmo” told me a lot about her 84 year old life. The dirtiest secret she told me was: on her husband’s deathbed he confessed to her he had five affairs and he told her that she made it easy for him to do that. “Gizmo” had a platter full of medications: heart medicines and psychotherapeutics mostly.
The day I called an ambulance for her, was the day I also picked up her daughter’s pair of dogs as a client. “Zo” needed help with her dogs so she could help her mom. “Zo” was a licensed therapist, but she confessed to me she could never even think about treating her mom. “Gizmo” called “Zo” just another M&M in her life over the telephone while “Gizmo” and I waited for the paramedics. “Zo” was always telling her mom she needed to eat something else besides M&Ms. “Gizmo” also confessed to me she saw the grey wolf once in a ketamine drip treatment for her depression.
“Gizmos” caretakers would confide in me in the hallways and sometimes over the phone, too. Caretaking the broken-hearted is a ruff job.
“Gizmo” was my favorite client while I am knowing I am not supposed to have favorites. “Gizmo” and I both shed a stoic tear together in our goodbye. I like to send “Zo” a random Valentine. It is hard to make them random.
Gizmo was her Pomeranian, and he hated with a passion any other dog who was not himself.
Bell and Whiskerdoodle Cookie would eat cat and/or deer poop when I let my guard down. I’d have to scoop terds out of the back of their throat when they snuck it. I didn’t have time to glove. You’d think after that I’d invest in disposable gloves, but it still had not occurred to me.
I ran out of poop bags one afternoon, and Peyton had one to take. In panic, I grabbed a couple sticks and made a bouquet of doodoos so passerbys wouldn’t be as appalled I left a dog pile at the curb.
I had my first car accident on my way to walk Peyton.
You should have seen the other car.
Turns out the Montana driver was visiting a neighbor three houses down from us after leaving a healing conference in Texas. Matt and I delivered a half-dozen cupcakes to Gary from Montana that evening for pulling out in front of me. I just felt it was the right thing to do to properly welcome him to Texas. He returned my Texas friendliness with Montana gratitude.
Griffin was so excited to see me one day, I wasn’t prepared for just how much. He lept up, knocked me off my balance, sending my behind through the front porch window. Fortunately it had occurred to me to invest in pet care insurance before that happened. Cleaning up broken glass is tedious.
I found three baby skunks on a dog walk with “Zo”, put them in a shoe box, and returned them to a wildlife refuge. I waited for the mom to return, but they appeared to had been abandoned. It was the cleanest could have been dirtier job I ever did dog walking.
Oscar went to spend a weekend with his grandparents, and he was happy I found him for his walk at his grandparents. I had never seen the place where dog poop goes to die, but I found it at Oscar’s grandparents. I picked up grocery bags and grocery bags and grocery bags of petrified dog poop at Oscar’s grandparents. I know they appreciated the unbeknownst hand because they thanked Matt and I for helping their daughter move out of her apartment.
Oscar’s apartment was the second dog walking client Matt and I moved.
There are many other stories that aren’t so dirty. Like the time Zodin helped me rescue a wren that had flown into their home. Zodin’s mom just thought the loud, repetitive “chirp” was the laundry machines or something like that. I believed her! I have a smoke alarm.
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