Ewww

It was a long day. I was tired when I came home with Shane, but Carrie was stressed and I wanted to help out. I walked some stuff out to the garage to clean and then stopped by the cat litter. I could smell pee, so I decided to be conscientious and change out the litter pad.

There are three things you need to know about this.

1) We have a litter system that reuses pellets and collects pee underneath. We've had the system for years. Normally, a pee pad lasts about a week.

2) It's Shane's job to clean out the litter and keep an eye on things. Frequently, I do the pee pad, but I've shown him how.

3) The cats knock the litter pellets everywhere, so Carrie put the litter bin into a box from Costco. It's a tight fit and the bin has to be tilted to fit in and out.

Back to the scene of the crime.

It occurred to me as I bent down to get the litter box I didn't remember changing a pee pad over break. I'd been too busy doing other stuff, but Shane was supposed to come in daily. The smell was awful, but I reached in, tilted the litter box up. It was heavier than I expected and the edge got a little stuck as pee poured out.

That wasn't right.

I stood there like an idiot in total shock. I felt what had to be a month's worth of cat pee sloshing around and pouring out onto my hand, coast sleeve, into the box, and onto the floor. A golden puddle was forming and my eyes were watering up when I finally yelled for help.

Carrie came running and you can imagine her reaction. My brain was still reeling, but I eventually got the idea to carry the bin into the garage.I was able to rip the litter bin out of the box (which seemed far flimsier as the pee ate at it). Then I tried to remove the pee pad.

The pee pad was so swollen that it had outgrown the tray. It squished and more piss wrung out of it as I tried to extract it while my senses were assaulted.

The scene of the crime looked like this.

Carrie was going to work on the ammonia scented lake inside. She drilled Shane. "How could you not notice the smell whenever you scooped the litter!?"

"I always held my breath!"

Shouldn't that have been a sign something was wrong?

By the time we got things cleaned up (though the smell may never leave) it was time for horse chores. I made Shane come with me part as a punishment and part to get him out of the house (Carrie was fuming and the fumes in the laundry room weren't roses either).

But that's not all.

After horse chores, dinner, and putting Shane to bed, I took Loki out for his bedtime bathroom break. It started off normal. Loki peed and then we went around back so he could poop.

If you have a dog, you know what a dog pooping looks like.

Loki dropped into a squat, but he didn't come back up.

If you have a dog, and your dog has a lot of hair, you may now where this is going.

Loki hobbled around the yard a bit without leaving poop position. He hobbled up to me and I already knew what to expect.

There was a full moon as I had the dog trapped and struggling between my legs as I tried to hold his tail up with one hand and help extract a turd from his fur with the other. There, I had a thought. My neighbors may have thought I was insane if they heard my laugh.

"The night started off piss-poor and ended on a shitty note."