Sparky took a dump on the floor in the middle of the night, but I can’t be mad at him.  I might be turning into a crazy person.

I am a deep sleeper, but wake for unfamiliar noises.  At 5 am, I heard something, and it wasn’t Sparky’s tap dancing on the hardwood floor as he goes for a stroll.  It was enough to warrant a sweep of the house, but that didn’t last long.

In the solarium, Sparky had taken a dump in the middle of the room.  It was so ludicrous, I was tempted to take a picture.  It was right in the middle of the room, and larger than his head.  One, let’s call it a segment, looked like an Arturo Fuente Magnum.

Last night, Sparky was uncomfortable.  If I lay on the couch to watch TV, he likes to flop over so I can rub his belly.  He didn’t want that.  Any flopping or belly rubbing was unappreciated.  Sparky even went to bed early, which is unusual.  As is our routine, I took him out before I went to bed.  It would usually be a quick trip, but we walked down to the bridge.  Sparky wasn’t talkative on our walk, and almost reserved.  I was a little concerned.

Something had him stopped up.  Maybe it was the change in routine from camping over the weekend or eating too much of whatever he found in the garbage bag.  Sparky is an old guy.  I’m an old guy.  I’d have had a cup of coffee to set me to right.  He has limited options.

Sparky did the only thing he could, so I cleaned up his deposit, and went back to bed. 

At about 8 am, Sparky came out to face his impending doom.  He knows what he did.  You can see the shame on his face in the photo.  I might be crazy for empathizing, and pretending like it never happened.

After taking the photo and talking for a little while, we went out for a walk.  Somehow, the little tube managed to poop again, but that was small potatoes.  It may have been a performative poop to convince me that a ground hog or hobo had creeped into my house to take a dump.  Fine, we’ll go with that.

Sparky was crying a little bit after I had to lecture him and put him in jail for getting into the trash.

I’m a bad parent.  No, not parent.  Dog owner doesn’t feel right either.  I’m not trying to instill good habits or protect him from the world.  He’s an adult with agency.  If Sparky wanted to smoke, I wouldn’t buy him cigarettes and he’d have to do it outside, but otherwise, it’s his decision.  It’s like when Hickman stays with me.  I want him to be comfortable and I enjoy his company, but he can make his own decisions.

After camping, the trash bag from the camper was accessible to Sparky.  I heard some rustling in the other room, but he is always doing something wacky, so none of my business.  Eventually, I found that he’d chewed through the bag and lapped up a bunch of barbecue sauce. 

When I would take my students to Cedar Point for Physics Day, there were two primary rules.

1.  Don’t do anything that reflects negatively on North Royalton High School.
2.  Don’t be late meeting up at the end of the day.

One year, Jess and I were in the back of the park, near Rip-Cord.  Three of our students were talking to a cop.  Our students had changed into morph suits.  A morph suit looks like this:

Cedar Point has a rule prohibiting guests from wearing costumes.  It has something to do with their affiliation with Hanna-Barbara.  Jess loaned one student a jacket to cover the suit, then traveled to the lockers with that kid to get their clothes. 

It was a violation of rule #1, so I had to punish them.  They could serve a week of detentions, or bring ice cream for the class.

That’s how I feel about Sparky’s infraction.  The bag was right there, he chewed a little hole, didn’t scatter any trash or get barbecue sauce on anything.  I’m not going to feed Sparky garbage, but if he eats some, well, that’s on him.  I didn’t lecture him, just pointed out the hole in the bag and put him in jail.  In that photo, Sparky was laughing, but tried to cover it by licking his paws.

I left him in there for 5 minutes. 

Nothing special, just Sparky screwing around in the yard.