As an independent writer and documentary filmmaker, I frequently travel to various locations around the West. Usually to places volcanic. It's a lonely job, except when my mom asks to come along, so I decided I needed a traveling buddy for my long summer trips.
Many truck drivers I have known over the years have a dog or two with them on the road. Usually it's some mutt they rescued from the side of the road. I did plenty of research and finally settled on the German Shorthaired Pointer -- a very trainable breed that could give me some road security for my electronic equipment.
A certain toy-thieving German Shorthair made up my mind and I ordered one of my own. At the time I lived in Portland, Oregon and the dog breeder was in Albany. It was a long distance to drive when the weather was so nasty and icy, so the breeder agreed to bring the puppy with her to a Portland dog show.
Finally the day came, and I went down to the show to pick up my puppy. He peered at me over the arms of his breeder with huge eyes. He certainly was not the graceful hunting dog he would become in later years -- that day, he was a wobbly puppy on stump legs with too many wrinkles on his face. But who could resist his face?
He quickly earned the name Reedy, which is short for Redoubt, an Alaskan volcano famous for dumping mud all over Valdez Harbor. And he sure could dump some mud! (Yes guys, here comes the poop part of the story.) His breeder warned me that Reedy had had some diarrhea on the way to Portland. I worked at a vet's office at the time and thought it was just the soft stuff that the kennel dogs sometimes dropped. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Reedy was so tiny that I carried him too the car zipped up in my jacket. His tiny head brought aww's and smiles from everyone in the parking lot. That's the deceptive thing about puppies -- they're so cute that everyone forgets the dirty side of owning one.
My parents drove so I could be with the puppy. As the car started moving, Reedy began to whimper. I thought maybe he was frightened by the ride, so I spread out his new baby blanket and gave him a rawhide bone to chew. He wasn't the least bit interested and kept right on crying. He shut up long enough to investigate a few toys at the local Petco, and he was quiet when we got back in the car.
Everyone knows that when a volcano creates earthquakes, it means an explosion may be imminent. But volcanoes don't always work like that. I compare what happened next to a deadly accident on Galeras in Colombia, where eleven volcanologists were shredded by a sudden explosion in the crater. They wouldn't have been there if Galeras hadn't been quiet that day. Unfortunately, the only reason it was quiet is that there was too much pressure inside to quake. So it went with little Reedy.
He lay down on his blanket the minute we got back in the car. We were stopped at a traffic light when he suddenly let out a yelp and stood up. Frantically, he looked around for a place to go, but there was none. His insides were near bursting. With a defeated look on his wrinkly face, he squatted on his blanket... and his asshole aimed in MY direction.
PLLLLLLLLL!!!!! Liquid lava the consistency of Dijon Mustard erupted from his butt. It sounded like squeezing the last drops out of a near-empty ketchup bottle as this pyroclastic flow of ass juice splattered against his blanket. And the car seat. And, more importantly, me.
The smell was something else again. I can only describe it as a dead raccoon someone stuffed in a Florida outhouse in the middle of August. Instantly, everyone's window was down. I fought back my own tsunami of vomit as I stuck my head out the window.
"No puking in the car," yelled Dad. People in the next car gave me funny looks. I choked back another wave of vomit when I tried to stick my head back in the window. By now everyone who was stopped at the red light was either laughing or giving me a dirty look. Meanwhile, poor Reedy plopped his butt down in the middle of his chunky load and look ashamed. He hung his head as his watery eyes bulged out at me, I'm not sure whether from the worry or the stench.
So there we were, me and my dog, in the middle of an enormous pile of yellowish shit. I cringed as I felt soggy puppy chow squish through my fingers. For some reason we hit every red light in town. It took half an hour to get home and I couldn't even move. How could such an ocean of liquid turd come from such a tiny puppy?!?
We arrived at home and I carried my shitty dog into the bathroom, where we both took an instant bath. This didn't go over well with Reedy, who yelped and squealed as I shampooed (ha ha, sham-poo) his short fur clean. Meanwhile, Mom put my clothes and his new blanket in the washing machine after a good hosing off.
Dad was stuck with the task of cleaning the car, which turned out to be in worse shape than it first appeared. Shit spewed across the back seat into both seatbelt compartments. It also cascaded down the back of the seat and collected in a giant pool below. We used an entire roll of paper towels to clean up the horrid mess.
Well, to make a long story short, Reedy and I cleaned up okay. So did our laundry. Unfortunately, the car was never the same. Mom had gotten it from Grandma after she died, and for many years it smelled like her favorite perfume. But after Reedy had his way with it, the thing always smelled like puppy ass vomit. Seven years later, it sits abandoned in the front yard. And it still stinks!
-- The Shit Volcano
