History is a Bitch - a weblog by Jeanne Kalogridis

I panicked; I'd never had a dog DO that before. Django was housebroken by his second day with us, after all. I had a clean-up bag, and so very quickly scooped up the offending fecal matter and ran out of the door with him. Off we run to the nearest grassy knoll where I had a heart-to-heart with Django and explained politely that if he had anything left in him, now was the time to just let it go. (I also explained that only grass was fair game -- the great indoors was always off-limits.)

He sat. He looked at me with innocent brown eyes that said, "That's it, Mom. Really. I'm fine now."

We waited for a long minute. Django sat and stared at me.

I took him back into the store. He dropped another massive log. In fact, as I hurried him back out the door, he dropped a total of FOUR steaming Italian sausages, end to end, right in the center aisle of the department store.

I tell you, they were mightily odiferous.

As I was fleeing, two elderly ladies were entering the store and came towards us, smiling and wanting to pet the charming puppy. I tried to wave them off with a poop bag, but they continued to careen dangerously right towards the sizzling dog logs.

Requiring me, of course, to shout: "Don't come any further, or you'll step in poop!"

Of course, everyone in the store turned to look at us. And the poop.

I needed humbling, I did. I had become cocky, had thought that my dogs behaved because I was a great trainer. I forgot that they were also mature, and had only over time become amazingly tractable.

I didn't give up on Django that day. Once the poop fiasco was behind us, I walked him down to my favorite clothing store in town, whose owner, Kathy, had been enamored of my dogs Hershey and Sweetie Pie and always came out to pet them.

So of course, she came out to greet Django. While she and I were chatting, with Django on a long lead, my darling puppy discovered a basketful of fuzzy wool scarves.

I leave you with the happy image of Django tearing blithely towards the front door of the shop, mouthful of wool, a half-dozen colorful scarves trailing behind him. Ah, puppyhood...