Episode 10: Poopapalooza….possibly my “best” story yet!

Julie Jackson
Hey, welcome to happy tales of happy tales, the podcast where you’ll hear stories of the way
pups have touched our hearts and our lives. So for the next few minutes, let everything else go
and just listen and smile. I’m your host, Julie Jackson. Hey, friends, I hope this finds you doing
well. I have an oldie but a goodie for you today. And honestly, I was a little reluctant to pull this
story out so early in the life of my podcast, because I really feel like this might be one of my
best dog stories ever. But I don’t know, I just really felt like this was the one I needed to share
this week. Maybe someone needs to hear this, I don’t know. But this one goes back about
seven years. At the time, my little person she was a middle schooler. I was it was during my
single mom days. So shout out to all those single parents because it’s hard. And at the time,
among our pack, we had three blue healers. We had our twin girls, they were the oldest, Lillian
Eleanor. They were about six or seven at the time. And then we also had Roscoe he was our
little tripod, and he was probably about three or four. So we have since we lost Roscoe at the
end of last year, and then we lost Lily a few months ago. So it’s kind of a bittersweet story. Kind
of crazy to think that Eleanor is the only one left from the story now. But at the time, when they
were still young enough, they didn’t have privileges to be left just roaming the house during the
day while we were gone. So I had one crate that was larger. And Lilly and Eleanor shared that
crate, they had always been together. They were siblings littermates. So they had always been
together and they were comfortable in that large crate together. And then I had a smaller crate
that Roscoe was in their crates were situated in the corner of the room, it was not a 90 degree
angle corner because it kind of opened out into a little bit of a bay window area. So one was
against like the horizontal wall and the other against the vertical wall, if you will, and kind of
end to end at a little bit of an angle. So I had worked all day, full day, on my feet with the
public, you know, you’re tired, it’s the end of the day, you’re ready to get home, you’re trying to
figure out dinner and homework, all those things that have to happen. Plus, my daughter and I
had decided we were going to go see a movie that night to the theater. Big Night Out go see a
movie, I don’t remember what we were going to see. But we were excited to have a night
together little mother daughter date night. So I get off work and I race over to pick her up from
where she went after school and I get there, the poor kid is miserably sick. She just she felt so
bad. All she wanted to do was get home, get in her pajamas, curl up, maybe be pampered a
little bit. Let mom take care of her a little bit and then go to bed. So we get home, opening the
front door. If you have dogs, you probably understand this feeling. But as soon as you open the
door, you think, ah, that’s not right. Something something’s waiting for me and it’s not good. I
go into the bedroom where their crates are, of course by now. They hear the door open there.
They know we’re in the house and they are so excited. This is one of the beautiful things about
dogs. Every time you come back. It’s like you’re coming home from war. They are so excited.
They haven’t seen you in years. They’ve missed you. They’ve saved all your letters that cannot
wait to reunite with you every single day. You could go to the store for five minutes and come
back and this is how it is. And they are also everyday we’re so excited to get out of the crates
and play with each other they had missed even though they’re right next to each other. They
every every day is a celebration. You have to love that. So they hear us coming and they are
doing all kinds of dancing in their crates and just so excited to be emancipated and allowed to
run free and do their dog thing. I walk into the bedroom. I don’t know if it was one, two or all of
them. But bless their hearts. They had not felt good that day either. And someone or someone’s
had explosive diarrhea, explosive diarrhea. It was all over the carpet around there. crates. It
was what they we have wire crates, it was splattered all across the walls behind both crates all
over the crates. And needless to say, the pups looked like they had been mud wrestling. It was
everywhere. And of course, you know the smell is enough to make you like your dry heaving.
And I’m just thinking, oh my goodness, how am I even going to navigate this? So my first
challenge is I know that they’re so excited to get out of the crates are jumping up and they’re
jumping on each other. And I know that that’s going to be a mess. And I’m trying to think is
there a way that I can get one of them out of the crate ticket, take her out in the yard get the
next one is there some civilized way that I can get them from the crate to the yard so I can
start the massive cleanup project and store? No, there was not there was not an easy way to do
this. The second that crate door opened, they came busting out like they were being fired out
of a cannon. They were so excited part of their celebration, of course involved jumping up and
running across my bed. And then out of that room through the living room through the kitchen
around all the furniture over all the furniture. Mind you, they look like little mud wrestlers, they
are covered covered in poop. There’s just you can tell everywhere they went because they left
a trail. All three of them flying through the house it oh my gosh, so I get them out into the yard.
At this point, I grab a spray bottle and a rag and I’m running around trying to just spot clean all
these places while it’s still fresh, for lack of a better word. to at least try to get that that process
started. Then the crates have plastic trays in the bottom that slide out. These are big though. Well, at least one of them. One crate was a little bit smaller. But these are big. These are not
like small. You know, I don’t know what the measurements are on this but maybe like three by
five feet, three by four feet. I’m not sure but but it’s like you have to tilt them to get them
through the doorway. And they’re covered and you can use your imagination. So I’ve got to get
these through the house. I get them out into the backyard. I have all these little poop covered
dogs running around the backyard. I’ve got a garden hose I’m out there trying to spray off
these massive trays. Then I have to go in and you know clean up the of course the walls in the
carpet. But I mentioned these are wire crates. So they have all those little intersections of the
little squares where the horizontal and the vertical wire meet. And so I’m having to clean all
these little places there is poop everywhere. I’m burning through all of my towels quickly trying
to get everything cleaned up. I finally get all this done. Now I have to get the dogs clean. I
could spray him with a water hose to kind of get the loose stuff but at this point, it’s going to
require scrubbing because some of the stuff now is caked on them and I finally determined my
best course of action is going to be to pull them into the shower with me and just clean them
off in the shower. I don’t think that I can really get them in the tub and then with my tub I didn’t
have any kind of handheld sprayer or anything. So I have a handheld sprayer in the shower.
Plus that way I can move around them so I think okay, shower it is. So I get them in the
bathroom. And I you know I’m getting in the shower with them. So I undress and I get in the
shower, and I start pulling them in and scrubbing them and getting them clean and so at least
we’ve kind of started to get all the filth off. But as I mentioned earlier, these are blue healers. I
don’t know if you know anything about Blue healers, but one thing that you shouldn’t be aware
of Blue Heelers shed a lot. People are often surprised by this because their coats look mostly
kind of slick most of the time they’re not particularly fluffy dogs. And so I think people assume
that means they’re not shattered but I joke when new healer people ask the question, Do do
healer shed how many times a year do they shed? I always say just twice from January to June
and July to December. It’s the truth. They’re, they’re always little furballs that look like little
rodents floating around in the corners of our house at any given time because they shed non
stop. So I’m cleaning them off. It’s also in the spring, they’re starting to blow out their coats. I
don’t know if you’ve ever seen that before with dogs that do that, but just huge chunks of fur
will come out just you know, you can be petting them and all of a sudden you have this big,
solid clump ufer in your, in your in your Paul in your hand. As I’m washing the dogs off in the
shower, I realized that the shower drain is now clogged, the shower pan is filling up and starting
to overflow into the bathroom. turn everything off. I’m trying to hold the dogs in there so that I
can get out I have one of those long plastic stick things that has little spikes on it that you can
put down your drain and it will catch all the you know stuff that’s clogging the drain and help
you pull it out. So I grabbed that saying, well of course when I go back into get into the drain,
they all just bust out of the shower door. And so now of course I have three wet dogs that are
running loose around the bathroom and the bedroom. I’m on my hands and knees with the stick
thing. Sneaking out the shower drain on leash, the most unimaginable disgusting sludge from
its watery prison. It’s just firm for and poop and mud. And it’s so disgusting. And I’m just pulling
this out by the clump through clump full pulling it through the drain. And I’m thinking oh my
gosh, I’ve got to deal with this now. Now mind you, I told you, I was showering with the dogs. I
am now on my hands and knees in the bathroom floor. D clogging the grill the drain. If you’re a
dog person, you know how dogs greet each other. And so someone decided at that moment in
time, it would be a great opportunity to come tell me Hello. So suddenly, I have a cold wet dog
nose on my butt nearly hit the ceiling. Totally a miracle that I did not break something in that
moment. So now I’m trying to get my heart rate down, trying to settle down, I have a handful of
shower sludge that I have to dispose of. I’m going to get rid of that put that somewhere, I need
to start drying them off. Of course in the meantime, while I was dealing with the drain, they ran
into my closet to do their shake. So everything in the closet now was wet, not saturated. But
everything in the closet is wet. There’s just splatter everywhere. And then after that they ran to
do I don’t know if you’ve ever seen where they get really excited. And they put their nose to the
ground and they run and they flip over and they roll on their back. And it’s the most joyful thing
you’ve ever seen. Well, they’re so excited because they feel better and they’re clean. And they
decided to do that celebration on my bed. Yes, the sheets were already dirty. Because
remember at the beginning of the story, they ran with their poopy paws all over the top of the
bed. So the sheets were getting washed anyway, obviously. Now the mattress pad everything
soaked because they’ve just been up there doing their celebration role while they’re soaking
wet. So I have all of these disgusting and wet towels, saturated towels. I have all of the
saturated bedding. I just at this point want to take care of my poor child who is probably
wondering what happened to her mom, she’s probably in there. pousser may have some more
like calling to see if she has parents anymore. And I just want to take care of her and go to bed.
I’m so worn out at this point. I get all the laundry collected. I go in, I start a load in the washer
to get it cleaned. finally have some clothes on I go to check on my daughter. I’m walking back
from from checking on her back into the bathroom to get more stuff to clean up. Walk past the
laundry room door and see water pouring under the door. Yes, yes, the drain in the washer had
clogged too. And it was flooding my laundry room. And so now I had water running out of the
laundry room and down the hall. Mind you, most of my towels are in there soaking wet from all
the other stuff that’s just occurred. So I’m just grabbing anything I have that can absorb water
and mopping the floor. I did with the help of Google managed to also fix my washing machine
that night. So I got that fixed. I got everything dried up. I got dressed. And I think that’s the
moment when I started drinking. I’m just kidding, but still That’s where it ended. So we did
finally get to go to bed and get some rest. But it was a crazy night. So I kind of wish I had on
video, although, you know, a lot of it would have to be blurred out. But I, as much as that is
such an insane story. And I hope if there’s anyone listening who doesn’t have dogs and you’re
thinking, I don’t know, maybe I’d like to get a dog. Don’t let this change your mind. Don’t let
this dissuade you from getting a dog because I look back on it now. And I laugh at that story. It
cracks me up when I think about it. But I will tell you to as I mentioned, two of the three pups
that were part of those adventures that night are not with us anymore. And if I had to do
pooper Palooza every single night, for the rest of my life, but I would get to have them with me,
I would not hesitate. I would do it every single night in a heartbeat if I could have those sweet
pups back with me again. So I hope y’all enjoyed that. And if you did, hey, Throw me a bone
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