How I Moved On After My Dog Rolled In Human Feces
When I was 23, my dog Grunt and I moved from Kentucky to Seattle. Within a month, I was riding a bus to work, eating Chinese food from paper cartons, and dating a Jewish guy. It was a world I had only seen on television: a 1990’s sitcom that remembered Asian people.
Seattle had everything — hiking, museums, ferries, cool bars and restaurants. My favorite thing, though, was the dog parks. Parks just for dogs! I was blown away. These parks were substantially nicer than most of the parks for people in Kentucky. They were cleaner, more amenities — they even had fewer dog turds.
That’s what made what happened that day all the more shocking. As we were leaving my favorite park, Grunt bolted from the car into a wooded area where homeless people camped. After a few minutes stomping around the woods, I found her performing that almost graceful movement dogs make when they bow their heads to perfume their necks with filth. I recognized it immediately, having washed bear scat and decomposing snapping turtle carcass from her fur earlier that spring.
This time was different, though. This time, the feces caked on Grunt’s back and neck were human. You might be asking yourself how I could have been so certain. It could have been raccoon, coyote, possum, even dog if you’re a glass-half-full kind of person. Well, I’ll tell you…
