I don’t wanna miss a Poop!

So in amongst rather more serious subject matter, such as AI and the endless and pointless Wars, I feel I must occasionally break the mould with some more lighthearted material. Much like the other night when myself and Mrs Wife watched one of the more disturbing episodes of The Last of Us (recommended TV), rather than go to bed with our minds racing about such a reality, I quickly advised we watch some comedy to reset.

What is expected to be a short rant (and perhaps one for a niche audience), I find myself needing to share the story of a missing frozen turd (laid by our dog I must add), which went AWOL the other day and will likely keep me awake at night more than The Last of Us series finale. Not finding it might be the last of me…

To back track a bit, living in a cold COLD place where Winter temperatures meet -37°C and more with a ‘wind chill’, everything outdoor freezes rapidly. This actually makes collecting and discarding dog poop from the yard easier, as you avoid having to deal with a ‘variable’ object. Instead, you are left with a solid (ideally 1 piece) disposable. It does of course have its downfalls if there are multiple parts or worse if your Dog has been a bit extravagant and you’re left trying to chisel off ‘crumbs’. Additionally, some ‘kicking’ might be required to separate the ‘item’ from the frozen ground. Luckily, I’m usually left having to gently dismantle a single ‘log’, which is captured in a poop bag and taken to the bin for General Waste (not recycling to clarify).

One of my bug bears is when I know there are potential ‘logs’ out there (I aim to discard daily), but due to inconveniently timed snow I become compromised. Ultimately, if you’re not ‘on the ball’, logs can be lost in the snow, which will then be frozen and only surface (and thawed) when Spring arrives. Those ‘logs’ could be buried for months.

During Winter times and due to the timing of my early morning dog walks, these searches often take place during the hours of darkness, thus a torch is required to aid with retrieving the missing item. At this stage you might have noticed I take this task a bit too seriously, although I feel other dog owners may sympathise.

All this leads me to Monday morning. Its about -20°C, I’ve returned from the dog walk at around 7am and its very dark in my yard. I clean Mr Dog and start my search, which always commences on the right side of the yard, as this seems to be Mr Dogs preferred side. I do check the full yard though, as every now and then Mr Dog feels the need to blindside me. On this particular morning I locate 2 separate sites (Mr Dog must’ve had a sneaky post dinner effort the night before) and after an initial assessment I determine some gentle kicking is required. I kick the first ‘log’ and it fires forward slightly. As its dark though, I missed where the item went. I pan my torch around and it seems the log has travelled further than expected. I expand my search toward the fence line and tree at the rear of the yard but still no sign of it. I go to the second site and diligently collect that log to restore some level of accomplishment during the process. I then try to find the missing item from the first site but still no joy. As I’m using my phone torch and my fingers are on the verge of frostbite, I’m now holding the phone in my pants to keep my hands warm. At this point I’m pacing up and down the yard looking like some sort of overly-eager flasher waiting to alarm some unsuspecting neighbour. As the window between the dog walk finishing and taking my Son to Daycare closes, I decide to sidebar this half completed mission for later when daylight hours commence. 

I return from the Daycare run and head straight to the yard with a refreshed sense of optimism. Often I look for something and cannot find it, only for Mrs Wife to attempt it and find it straight away. ‘A Mans look’, she would call it. However, Mrs Wife doesn’t do poop collection. This is apparently a ‘specialist task’ that not just anyone can master. This is a task for someone with experience, someone who can apparently out-think dogs and assess poop trends to expedite recoveries. I would at this point advise that the first 24-hrs are the most critical under such circumstances. I am to poop retrieval what Bruce Willis’ Harry Stamper is to drilling if you’ve seen Armageddon. “I have been retrieving poops for 5 years. And I have never, NEVER missed a poop that I have searched for. And by God, I am not gonna miss this one, I will find this poop.”

Entering the yard I expect to find the ‘log’ there in all its glory in the glorious daylight. However, it’s still not visible. I start to kick the snow about a bit in case its buried beneath it. I then revisit the fence and tree for a refreshed look but nothing. WT-Actual-F has happened to this turd? I know I didn’t kick it that hard but it’s like its somehow vaporised into the atmosphere. I’m always diligent with my kicking, as during our first Winter when I discovered kicking frozen Dog poops was an essential skillset, I accidentally cleared the fence with one to an adjacent yard. Needless to say, I didn’t then knock on their door and ask if I could please go and retrieve a poop I’d just kicked over the fence. I felt I’d have to die on that hill and hopefully never be held accountable for it. Harry Stamper of course would not approve.

I returned to the house to inform Mrs Wife of the mornings events – I felt she didn’t share my frustration. I also then felt the need to leave my mate a voice-note on Whatsapp to share this story, as it reminds me of time when we (me) lost his football, as kids. This was another similar case of an item simply disappearing into thin air. We were playing football and my mate struck the ball toward goal, where I was playing Keeper. I made an excellent parry to get the shot away and sent the ball down the hill. Unfortunately this was an issue where we lived. It was all down hill, often playing on impromptu sloped ‘pitches’ between parked cars, houses and other unfriendly football objects. The ball carried on down the hill into some shrubbery, possibly 25m away. No issue, I’ll just go and retrieve it. So I went into the shrubs where my mate joined me but nothing. This was made worse by the fact this ball had only been bought that day and was an Official replica of the football used in the English Premier League during the 1993/94 season; The ‘Mitre Tactic’. I think it cost about £40, which in today’s money is probably around £100. It was a LOT of money. We of course expanded the search and even tried to memorise the save to determine if it might’ve have bounced over a fence but the more we thought about it, the more ridiculous the memory became. We decided to leave it for a bit and return again later in the hope of more success. My mates Dad also made a point of knocking on my door each dinner time for a whole week to spend some time searching for it. I suspect he was perhaps putting the feelers out to see if my Dad would reimburse but my Dad never took the bait. Perhaps he was already out of pocket with the other outdoor lamps and car wing mirrors and aerials I’d broken around this time.

Unfortunately, we never found the ‘Mitre Tactic’ and as of the time of writing I’ve not found the frozen poop. I do hold out more hope for retrieving the latter though, whilst the former has been retained as a long-running joke brought up about once a year. For now I’ll circle back in the Spring when I’ll hopefully be able to conduct my own rendition of Aerosmith’ ‘I don’t want to miss a Poop…’