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Poop shouldn't make a creature this happy, I think as I watch Olive devour a large cow turd. I don't think it's anthropomorphic to believe she's smiling every time she surveys the open field with the mounded treats. I think it's a fact. She runs with them, she sits with them, she rolls with them, and she eats them. They're as equally entertaining as they are fulfilling to her. She poops cow poop. I've never seen anything like it.
Puppies are generally excitable and energetic but this pursuit of poop goes way beyond normal. If it's possible for a dog to have ADHD then this must be what it looks like. As far as I can tell each turd is a completely new experience because each one is approached as if it's the first time she's ever seen one. Her enthusiasm never wanes. Ever. If I could give voice to her exuberance it might sound like this:
"HOLY SHIT (that's punny), I FOUND A TURD OVER HERE, LOOK DAD!!!!!!"
"OH MY GOD, LOOK, ANOTHER TURD! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!"
"LOOK OVER THERE, I THINK I SEE ANOTHER TURD!!! I"M GONNA GO CHECK IT OUT!!!"
"YEP, I WAS RIGHT, IT'S ANOTHER TURD!! I'LL BRING IT OVER TO YOU NOW SO YOU CAN SEE!!"
On and on this quest goes. Day after day, week after week, it's the same thing, with the same enthusiasm. She pursues turds at 9 months old with the same excitement she did when she was 4 months old. She likes sticks and she like bones, but poop will never hurt her. Is that how the nursery rhyme goes?
We all want our favorite foods just the way we like them. Thankfully she prefers her mini mountain snacks in a pseudo jerky form. This way she can carry them with her and I'm spared the brown pasty kiss that would ensue had they not had time to properly cure. Nikki has asked me to try and stop it but that's a fools errand. Though the sight of it is rebarbative, what's in there other than the golden grass these free range cows eat? I see it as a balanced, healthy snack and besides, who would take away a kid's crackers mid snack just because they didn't like saltines? If they prefer pureed peas, you give it to them even if the sight and smell of it makes you gag.
I try to imagine what could make this hunt so relentless and her energy so indefatigable. It must be like having the food from your favorite restaurant laid out daily for you while you lounge at your favorite place in the world. Oysters and beer in the sand at sunset? Wine and steak in the lodge at Vail with a gentle fire burning nearby? Whatever that place is, go there in your mind and you have a small sense of what she must experience when looking out over her buffet. Her body shakes with anticipation as I fiddle with the leash to release her into the lavish feast that awaits. I unlatch the hook and off she goes, into her field of dreams.
