Highway Robbery.

I am convinced that my doggy day-care is trying to rob me.

Three weeks ago I went to pick up Claudia after work. As I walked into the building I saw one of the boarding technicians giggling with the receptionist. When they spotted me, the giggling stopped. They both adopted guilty expressions and wouldn’t make eye contact.

I walked up to the desk and the receptionist turns to the boarding tech and says, gesturing toward me with one hand, “Well, tell him.”

The boarding tech looks up and says, “Uh, well, today Claudia was playing, and, um, well she uh, well she…ateanotherdogspoop.” That’s just how she said it too. Really fast, all words running together. I didn’t understand her, so I said, “Pardon?”

She blushes a little bit and says again, “We caught Claudia eating another dogs poo. And it was really fresh.”

I was speechless. And nauseous. And ashamed. My sweet little princess was a shit eater?

The receptionist looks at me and says, “This isn’t good. You need to do something about it.” I explained that I had never seen her do this before, and if I’m not around when the behavior is happening how can I stop it?

She looks at me like this certainly is my fault. “This behavior is not tolerated here.” She then hands me a flyer about coprophagia in dogs. Coprophagia is a fancy (latin?) word for eating doody.

Two weeks went by without a repeat performance. Then, calamity. I was working late and asked Mike to pick Claudia up. He called me as soon as he had her in the car and said, “Your dog is eating shit again.” The same technician gave him a lecture about this behavior. I asked him what he said. He replied, “Once I realized I was being scolded because Claudia ate another dogs shit, I turned around and left.”

When I dropped Claudia off the following morning, the receptionist pulls me aside to discuss Claudia’s new favorite treat. She again told me how they won’t tolerate that kind of behavior. I asked what she thought I could do about it. Her response shocked me.

“Well, there is one thing we can do. If the other dog’s poop tastes bad then Claudia won’t want to eat it.”

“Uh, doesn’t poo already taste bad? It’s poo…”

“Well, your dog obviously enjoys the taste. What we can do is give the other dogs in daycare a supplement that makes their poo taste really yucky (her exact words).”

“Uh, OK. Do that I guess.”

“Well, what we’d need you to do is pay for the prescriptions for the other dogs. Those pills aren’t free you know! Te-he.”

“Wait, what? You want me to pay for pills to make shit taste like…shit?”

“Well, yes I suppose. Each prescription will cost about $25.”

“For how many dogs?!”

“Any given week we have 15-20 dogs at daycare,” she said to me with a totally straight face.

“Uh-uh. Not going to happen. Are you people on glue? You want me to pay $500 so my dog will stop allegedly eating poo. I’ve never seen her do this. Not once. How do I know she’s even really doing it?” I was furious! “I already pay you people to keep her from eating poo! Aren’t you supposed to be watching her? This is your problem!” With that I turned and walked out.

Strangely enough, that is the last I heard about Claudia’s poo eating. And while I think they made the whole thing up to steal my money, I still cringe inside every time Claudia tries to lick my face…