My dog crapped on my Memorial Day... but more so my car.

I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon this weekend. It turns out that although it is in the same state, it is super far away. Gas is expensive, etc. Instead, the fam (ha, we're a fam!) decided to go to Mt. Lemmon to go on a hike instead. For those of you who are familiar, don't make fun. For those of you who aren't, it's totally the same as the Grand Canyon. Totally.

The drive up is a pretty one. The biosphere literally changes from rocks and heat to cool weather and evergreens. It's only about thirty miles up, but the whole world changes. Usually, my dog, my man, and I enjoy the scenery. This time, Tiko the dog changed everything.

He was very excited to be going anywhere. Life was pretty crazy there for a while and he probably spent more time in the crate than good puppy parents would allow. Now, I've gotten off school and Tiko doesn't need to be in the crate. [One of my side goals for the summer is to get him trained enough not to have to be in the crate while we're away. We'll see. Last time, he ate two books, pooped on them, and then spread it around the living room. That took him about 15 minutes. It might be a long, long journey to freedom for us both.] However, apparently, my company and our tiny apartment isn't enough to keep Tiko from going crazy. We could sense his cabin fever and he could sense we were going somewhere fun.

We walked him before we left, I swear. He peed and everything. Then, about ten minutes from where we were planning on walking him, he started desperately trying to get in the front seat. [He's too big to fit on either of our laps now, so he lives in the back.] I remember saying something like, "Don't be annoying, Tiko. We're almost there." And then about three minutes later, I smelled it. Sick baby poo. You know what I mean.

Since Tiko has a sensitive stomach, I assumed foul play. Sometimes he eats random stuff he finds on the ground and it doesn't bode well for anyone. So I hoped that he had had a desperate situation and it was just life. Nope. Perfectly healthy poo except that it was about half his weight. Just to clarify, huge mounds of poo covered a good portion of my backseat.

We got to the general store that's most of the way up the mountain just a few minutes later, though the smell made it seem quite a bit longer. We bought some carpet cleaner and paper towels and found that our little puppy was just fine. No problems. He just didn't want to wait any more. In fairness to him, he didn't know how much longer we were driving; maybe he held it as long as he could.

After the cleanup was conducted, we realized it was a frigid 65 degrees out (we have become Arizonians) and we were too cold and ill prepared for such a cold hike anyway. The air was let out of our sails.

On the way home, I thought it'd be fun to look at some of the really expensive houses that are in the foothills of the mountains. I was wrong. A psycho had a psycho dog (fitting, really) that attacked my car mid-Y-turn. I have little puppy scratches all over my car now and I really want to sue, but I feel it would be fruitless.

I have a black car with scratches on it and poop stank stuck inside it. I have a black car. In Arizona. In summer. I am sure that will smell fine in a matter of moments. In the meantime, I have bought a car-specific bottle of Febreeze to spray each and every time I am in the car. Now it just smells like Febreeze and dog poop.

I feel like there's probably a moral in there somewhere, but I'm too stinky to find it.