Not a good day to be a dog in our house

I don't know what is up with dogs and toilet bowls!

As an upfront warning, I'll state that if the topic of toilets (or the matter that is usually deposited in them) makes your stomach feel queasy, then you'll be better off skipping this post.

It turned out that today was a bad day to be a dog in my house. A very bad day. Our rescue mutt (who looks a lot like a Siberian husky and is affectionately called "Skye" by my husband and kids and is not-so-affectionately called "dog" by yours truly), decided that this would be the day that she would drink, lap and essentially dine out of our downstairs toilet bowl.

Let me set the stage for this very short (but action-packed) one act play. The downstairs bathroom usually has the door slightly ajar but mostly closed. Additionally, the toilet seat cover (as is the case with all our toilets) in this washroom is always in the closed position unless 1) we have guests who don't know about our "keep lid closed" policy, or 2) we are going to be away for a few days and don't want icky stuff growing on the underside of the seat or lid due to trapped moisture. An important detail is that we have been without water since 9 AM in the morning due to DPW turning off water to repair a water main (or something) down the street.

It is after lunch and about 2 PM. One more hour before the water gets turned back on. 'Shroom and Lolli both need to go potty even though they had just gone about two hours ago at a local church restroom. Well, they just ate lunch so with Air Boss' permission, they are instructed to each take a separate restroom and do their business but don't flush. We had the hand sanitizer ready once they were done.

I didn't think anything of it all other than "note to self: do NOT step foot into bathrooms until AFTER water is turned back on and AFTER kids have flushed their own mess down the toilet." I was about 10-15 minutes into giving Lolli her piano lesson when I was wondering what that soft lapping sound was. I told Lolli to keep playing while I quietly got up from the piano bench and stealthily walked toward the downstairs bathroom (I had a hunch--but, oh I was hoping my hunch was wrong--what was making that lapping sound).

I caught "dog" lapping from the toilet bowl!!! Gross!! The bowl was not filled with water (Air Boss had used the one flush after the water was turned off so the bowl was empty) but it was filled with--

I won't go into the details but I'll just say there was both liquid and solid. "Dog" immediately knew she was in trouble because she quickly scuttled out of the bathroom to get away from me. In the process of doing so, her wet dirty muzzle (which coincidentally matched the two hues of the toilet contents) dripped . . . stuff . . . all over the floors in the foyer and part of the living room.

I'm yelling up the stairs at Air Boss about what's going on and Lolli had stopped her playing to engage in the much-more-entertaining act of spectating. There is no water in the house. I couldn't even clean the dog with the hose outside. I grabbed the disinfectant wipes under the kitchen sink and no-so-lovingly grabbed "dog" by her collar and wiped down her face. It did briefly occur to me that the chemicals in the wipes may not be so "pet-friendly" but I figured that the wipes were the least of dog's "not-pet-friendly" worries (like an extremely angry and grossed out human). I was so utterly disgusted with the mess that came off and appeared on the wipe.

I did the best I could, threw the dog in her crate (yeah, yeah - a crate is not to be used for a place of punishment but WTH, I was trying to contain the unsanitary mess), and tried my best to wipe down the floors with the disinfectant wipes.

To his credit, Air Boss gets kudos for cleaning the bathroom.

Later on when the water came back on, I tried to get "dog" to drink some water to rinse out her mouth (I didn't even want to get a whiff of her dog breath nor did I want to stick my hand anywhere near her mouth to brush her teeth). When she refused, I hauled her outside and turned the hose on her head.

If you think I was traumatizing the dog with the forced washing of her mouth, well, consider us even.

dog: 1

human: 1

At least I didn't make her eat soap.