A Doggy Plant Food Nightmare

 Original article by S. Veigel May 25, 2019

Warning: Contains a photo of poop.

I think sometimes it is useful to point out that even too much of a safe product can cause problems. Not a really hair on fire message, but something you really should think about. Why? Because I never thought about it and it became the second worst doggy nightmare of my life.

This is not a brand warning so I’m not going to mention any brands but I’m talking about organic plant food of various types. Organic plant food? Yes. A perfectly safe product for the environment with absolutely no warnings or special handling instructions on the package anywhere. Those perfectly aromatic wonderful substances that plants thrive on. And dogs can make themselves sick over. I mean, not life threatening perhaps, but really, really, really sick over.

So my wife and I have hounds all over 10 years of age now (as I’m writing this). I just turned 67 in May of 2019. All of our adult lives we have used the usual plant foods when adding to our garden areas and never had a problem. Dig the hole, add plant food, cover and water. Dig a trench in the mulch around the roses, cover and water. The biggest problem we ever had was that the fresh turned soil and plant food was a real good sniffy for the dogs and we had to correct them when they pawed at the area and tried to nibble something in the soil; or the plant itself. But this year, just before my birthday that all changed. This year we decided to go the extra distance and give all the flowering shrubs some nice organic plant food. I was outside most of the time and weary of the dogs sniffing around, but there were also quite a few distractions that needed my attention in the house from time to time. “Millie, leave it!”, “August!”, “Ginnie!” you could hear me say at any moment as I stepped back out and caught them pawing around the plants.

That night off to bed early for me. We’ve taken care of a number of sick dogs over the years so I was up and ready if a dog woke me. After a while I became accustom to rising soon after midnight, so I mean early to bed. Soundly asleep on a combination of Gabapentin and Ambien I started to wake up at around 8 o’clock to the sound of my wife’s voice saying, “Millie! Move.” And then, “Steve, Millie pooped in the bed. Get up”.

Some might be angry and yell at the dog, but poor Millie. I don’t know she even knew she pooped in the bed. Though it was a bit of a hassle I was concerned about her. So we stripped the bed, put new sheets and blankets on, tried to figure if Millie was alright (she is an aging dog) and got everyone back to sleep. Then August the Beagle was scratching on something. She does that sometimes if she gets down off the bed and her way back up the doggy steps is blocked. I got up, picked her up, put her back in bed and we all went blissfully back to sleep.

In many horror stories the clock strikes midnight when something is about to happen. It wasn’t exactly midnight when my horror story began, but it was pretty close. And it wasn’t the clock striking midnight. It was the scratch, scratch, scratch of the Beagle.

You might give some significance to the midnight hour here, if you have an active imagination. Or perhaps the fact that it was the eve of my 67^th birthday; 6+7 being 13 and all that. But regardless, I woke up the pack, got all the dogs out of the bedroom, closed the bedroom door so my wife could sleep and carefully stepped between three hounds – who always crowded around the top of the stairs to wait for me to start the procession down the steps. Then, as I approached the bottom of the steps I saw some dog poop. Not the first time, having cared for sick dogs. “Have to clean that up” I thought. “Get them all outside first”, I thought. Then I turned. Step by step I saw more, and more and more poop. A hideous nightmarish trail every 2 inches rounding the bottom of the steps, down the wood flooring of the hallway and across the carpet of the family room leading to the back door. Stunned and still groggy from my medication I got two of the dogs outside while Ginnie, as always, stayed behind expecting a cookie first. Unwilling to accept what I saw I started the coffee pot. As my mind rejected all this as some sort of reality I got a cup, gave the dogs a cookie, stepped outside, smoked a pipe and tried to understand what I needed to do.

Clean it up of course, you might say here. But not that easy. It was half dried and the paper towel and cleaner I started with didn’t faze it. It was construction thinking time.

Fortified by coffee I strapped on my flooring knee pads and grabbed a putty knife, paper towel, cleaner and a plastic bag. Inch by inch (literally) I crawled down the hallway scraping up 1 to 2 inch piles of poop, trying to wipe each spot with cleaner. Then across the carpet with varying methods. After that the floor cleaning machine for the hallway and the carpet cleaner, obviously, for the family room. But that was not all. Seven hours later, expecting grandchildren that morning by eight o’clock, I was still scraping the most awful goo out of the lawn everywhere, hosing it down and taking the bedding outside to hose off the pile of poop on it. Then I found a stool in the upstairs hall and a pee spot where August had obviously been during the night. In the bedroom a spot of vomit from August. I dragged the carpet cleaner upstairs and finally finished, exhausted and ready for the grandchildren.

At this point I think about people who might say, “If that were my dog I’d have to get rid of it”. No, think about it. I have no doubt this trail was Millie our basset hound. What did Millie do? She felt this problem going on and did her best to do the only thing she could think of. Go to the back door and try to get someone’s attention. It wasn’t her fault she was sick. She tried. But she needed help. It was too much, she couldn’t get out and no one was there to open the door. For that you can only love her.

As for the mess and the moral. Sick dogs, sick people and babies I have never in my life seen so much poop. I had no idea a dog bowel could contain that much poop. And I had no idea organic plant food could cause so much trouble.

Three days, Imodium, Pepto-Bismol tablets and frequent aware trips outside later the dogs are fine. But let me offer some advice.

Not all dogs are going to scratch around in the dirt looking for something to nibble. But if you have a dog with a keen sense of smell (like a hound or other) take note of their behavior when you use organic plant food or anything else that’s a really good sniffy. Use as directed, dig a trench in the mulch, measure in the plant food, cover it and then, above all, water the heck out of it to make sure it is diluted down into the soil. All the dogs at my house, especially the basset hound, was around the corner at every opportunity licking up more than their fair share of organic plant food.

Take my advice. Maybe, just maybe, when the clock strikes midnight, the wicked poop fairy won’t come calling.