Since Leo's Homecoming, we have been crate-training him. For the most part he's doing extremely well! He hasn't had any accidents (Knock-Wood) during the night in his crate, and on rare occasion he will have an accident inside, but he's still little, so there isn't much to clean up...for now at least!
I planned on taking Leo over to my best friend Sarah's house on Monday to play with her three kids (and Jackson) and to aid in his socialization so he will be a well-rounded puppy. A few days before, I purchased a travel-crate for when Leo needs to go to the vet, or just whenever I need to travel with him. The crate is medium-sized, and very soon Leo will grow out of it. Currently, it does the trick, and we will use it until we can no longer stuff him in it. Even though I brought his travel kennel with us for our little adventure, I thought I would be a nice Mommy and let Leo ride on the passenger-side floor board as we drove to visit our friends...Big Mistake!
At first, Leo was fine. He layed down and seemed to accept the fact that he was riding in the car, much to his dismay. After a while he tired of the floor board, and he decided to climb up into the passenger side seat to lay down there. Perhaps he was looking for a more comfortable spot that had cushion, or maybe he needed a different view. I tried to get him off my of seat, but driving in Houston traffic at 6:00 pm while attempting to push a stubborn Mastiff down from my seat proved to be a tad difficult. Rather than wreck the car with 3/4 of our family in it, I just let Leo stay where he was. I mean, what harm could come from him laying in the seat, right?
I'm glad you asked! Leo got up and was now standing on the center console (between the driver and passenger seats) trying to push past me to climb into the back seat, or so I thought. I nudged him to push him down, and in doing so I hear a "squish" sound. I'll not describe it, but trust me when I tell you that when you hear a noise like that, you KNOW what it is...
I was on the phone with Sarah; I had been for a while. I looked around quickly, trying to keep my car between the ditches, frantically searching for this "mystery noise", and then it hits me. No, not a car! It was the fulsome aroma of Puppy Poop! Yes, even Mastiffs get a touch of car-sickness occasionally. Once I located this mound of filth I realized the severity of my current situation. THERE WAS PILE OF POOP JUST SITTING BESIDE ME!!! I as completely grossed out, and Sarah wass absolutely dying on the other end of the phone. I grabbed Leo by his collar, and tried my best to pull him off of my leather seat. (If you will imagine for a moment what a cat might do if you were to attempt to put it in the bath, you would get a fairly accurate visual of what I was dealing with.) Even at 12 weeks, Leo is quite strong, so when I finally wrestled him to floor board, I had to rest my right arm a bit. That is until I saw the aftermath of his coup de main.
Feces was now smeared all over my seat, my purse, the towel I brought for Leo lay on, and on Leo himself! My car reeked, and even though I dropped my phone in my lap, I could STILL hear Sarah guffawing on the other end! Once she was able to breath normally again, I asked her if she would be so nice as to have some 409 and some paper-towels handy for me when I pulled up, as I was just down the street from her house. We drove the remaining distance with all of the car windows down so as not to heave from the stench...the temperature gage on my car read 117 degrees. Yes, it was awesome indeed!
Upon arrival, I rid my car of the waste, get both Jackson and Leo situated, and began fervently dousing my soiled seat with the cleaner, scrubbing and wiping as best as I can to sanitize my vehicle. You know that saying, "Like flies on stink"? Well let me be the first to tell you that no truer words have ever been spoken! Flies the size of Texas began swarming through my door and window to get a piece of what Leo left behind! I noticed that the matter seems to be coming up well, and the flies leave because they don't like to be sprayed with chemicals. My paper towel barely has a trace of excrement on it what-so-ever! However, I noticed a curious color staining the used, wadded up wipe. It was black, and for the life of me I couldn't understand why so much dirt was coming off of my seat! That is when I realized it wasn't dirt at all. The 409 was ruining my black leather!!!
I had Sarah come look at it, and as we stood there staring at the atrophy of my seat, we are able to rub enough of our brain cells together to come to the realization that warm, soapy water and a sponge would have been a much better solution to my problem than the abrasive cleaner I used earlier. After a few minutes, Sarah brought me out a dish of soapy water, and I begin to dilute the existing chemicals on my seat. Eventually, the black stopped coming off on my wipe, and I called it an afternoon.
My car no longer smells like an out-house, but my seat has these awesome chemical burns on it that I am sure will someday be a great conversation piece for Jackson to drum-up. "Hey Mom, remember that time when..."Yes Honey, I do.
No good deed goes unpunished.
No comments:
Post a Comment