Last Thursday when my little guy and I came home, I found a dog blanket on our side deck. It had poop on it. Sigh. I went inside to find the note from the dog walker that Oli’d had an accident in her crate. I then went to the front room where SiouxsieQ hangs out and found that Siouxsie must have been constipated, because there were three bloodhound size piles of poop in our living room. There are no words to describe the shakiness of that breathe I took. When I went into the bathroom to find the bathroom trashcan ransacked and garbage strewn about, I actually screamed. Auden made himself scarce, and I set about cleaning everything. Sandy got home just in time to find me going to clean the crate only to discover another round of poop. He thankfully intervened before I could euthanize them.
Besides the sh*tstorm incident, I think the greatest challenge for me with our new girls/dogs is the variability of the responsibility. I admit, I take on more than I should. I did before I developed a chronic, life-altering illness, and yet I continue to do so even though I have fewer ‘mesources’ or Spoon Theory spoons from which to work. I am running in the red at the expense of my health, my family, and my friendships.
A little less than a year ago, before getting sick, I decided that I needed more me time/alone time, ideally a space of my own to recharge. At the time my central concern was living where everyone had expectations of me. I wanted to be unknown, so that I could give myself a break. What I hadn’t realized then was that I not only needed to be alone and responsible to no one, I needed to have my own space that would not be violated by surprise and only be impacted by me. When I spent a week in Ashland last November in a studio by myself, a calm came from knowing from the moment I woke that what needed to be done that day was both predictable and controlled by me. I sick a month late and had to start counting my spoons. Every time that I turn around and something is different I panic a little bit about redefining the todo list and my allotment. When I walk into the kitchen to find new dishes on the counter, especially when they could have been loaded into the dishwasher, I am exhausted before I even get around to loading them.
With the girls, in particular it is not only finding the living room full of poop, it is the anxiety I feel whenever I leave the girls at home. Now I begin anticipating the next surprise. I spend hours considering how to control the chaos – reading about dog behavior, reaching out to trainers, buying dog toys and treats and naturopathic remedies. I may try something new, only to sit in a meeting dreading what I could not have predicted. Some of the worries are as much about how other people are involved. The fear of judgment or shame augment my anxiety. My hounds shat in the house because I cannot let them have free access to the backyard when we’re gone. I choose piles of poop over neighbors’ complaint about howling or escaping hounds.
As I reread the last paragraph, it struck me that I refer to them as my hounds that I attempt to control. I do not know if that means that I feel exclusively feel responsible for them, which I doubt. I think it is more likely – and more unfortunate – that having them, having dogs, is a critical part of my identity and value system. I recognize we should consider giving them back to the rescue organizations. I understand that they are far more trying/exhausting/surprising than our prior dogs, but I cannot do it. It goes to the core of my being: we rescued them, and we’re going to have to live with the consequences: a small scale model of what my parents may have felt many years ago.
I have no solutions, but at least I recognize some significant aspects of the problem. I suppose that is the first step in cleaning up one and preventing the next sh*tstorm.