The Lawrence Humane Society has been building a signature event called the Mutt-n-Strut across the past few years.
It is the average run-of-the-mill dog festival with free goodies, exhibitor tents, an emcee with drawings and raffle prizes, and a 1 or 2-mile walk. Of course it is done in Lawrence, where there is an overarching attitude of superiority, so that adds to the overall snooti-ness factor of the event. So what if there are only 100 people there; of the 100, there are really only 25 who make the cut in terms of tragic hipness. Residents of MisFit Farm do not make the cut.
I woke up the morning of the event, having arrived home at around 2:30 a.m. and gone to bed around 4 a.m., feeling not my perky best. As a matter of fact, I was wondering why in the world this EVER seemed like a good idea.
We leashed up Mercy, Trinity, and Emmett (more about him in a future blog) and headed out for a lovely morning stroll with 100 of our closest canine friends, or at least with our friend, Scout, and his parents.
It has rained for what has felt like 40 days and 40 nights. There are flash flood warnings. Lake closures. Roads washed out. Not on the day of Mutt-n-Strut. The day of Mutt-n-Strut, we were treated to a bright, sunshiny morning where the heat index hit about 112 degrees by the time the 1 or 2-mile walk started, 45 minutes after its publicized time. We parked at my parent’s house, which was a few blocks away, in order to save the trouble of locating parking at the event.
I was checking off the contents of my backpack as we began our walk to the event. We had made it about three blocks when I realized that I had forgotten to bring poop bags. “Surely,” I thought, “we can make it five blocks to the event where they will have bags available for future usage.” Approximately one block later, Mercy deposited what our friend described as a “pudding poop” directly in the middle of the sidewalk. Of course with her rear-differential issues, she can’t be subtle about it. She splays her back legs out, hunkers down, and then cranks her one leg to encourage the activity, a lot like one of those play-doh machines. I would have been mortified, except that I was gaily leading the pack, being towed along by a three-legged and never-before-leashed socialite built of pure muscle who was hell-bent on making it to the event like, yesterday.
When I realized what had happened, I purged myself of any thought that we would make the elite and tragically hip Mutt-n-Strutters cut.
Had I not been continually engaged in the process of reining in a three-legged and never-before-leashed socialite built of pure muscle, I would have done the responsible thing and gone back to clean it up. The cruel world being what it is, I was not afforded the opportunity, and instead was treated to the spectacle of watching the 85% of the Mutt-n-Strutters who all took off before we were able to get our krewe together to join their walk, dance around and wrinkle their noses up at the trail of pudding poop and tidy little pile left on Mercy’s outward bound voyage.
It is the average run-of-the-mill dog festival with free goodies, exhibitor tents, an emcee with drawings and raffle prizes, and a 1 or 2-mile walk. Of course it is done in Lawrence, where there is an overarching attitude of superiority, so that adds to the overall snooti-ness factor of the event. So what if there are only 100 people there; of the 100, there are really only 25 who make the cut in terms of tragic hipness. Residents of MisFit Farm do not make the cut.
I woke up the morning of the event, having arrived home at around 2:30 a.m. and gone to bed around 4 a.m., feeling not my perky best. As a matter of fact, I was wondering why in the world this EVER seemed like a good idea.
We leashed up Mercy, Trinity, and Emmett (more about him in a future blog) and headed out for a lovely morning stroll with 100 of our closest canine friends, or at least with our friend, Scout, and his parents.
It has rained for what has felt like 40 days and 40 nights. There are flash flood warnings. Lake closures. Roads washed out. Not on the day of Mutt-n-Strut. The day of Mutt-n-Strut, we were treated to a bright, sunshiny morning where the heat index hit about 112 degrees by the time the 1 or 2-mile walk started, 45 minutes after its publicized time. We parked at my parent’s house, which was a few blocks away, in order to save the trouble of locating parking at the event.
I was checking off the contents of my backpack as we began our walk to the event. We had made it about three blocks when I realized that I had forgotten to bring poop bags. “Surely,” I thought, “we can make it five blocks to the event where they will have bags available for future usage.” Approximately one block later, Mercy deposited what our friend described as a “pudding poop” directly in the middle of the sidewalk. Of course with her rear-differential issues, she can’t be subtle about it. She splays her back legs out, hunkers down, and then cranks her one leg to encourage the activity, a lot like one of those play-doh machines. I would have been mortified, except that I was gaily leading the pack, being towed along by a three-legged and never-before-leashed socialite built of pure muscle who was hell-bent on making it to the event like, yesterday.
When I realized what had happened, I purged myself of any thought that we would make the elite and tragically hip Mutt-n-Strutters cut.
Had I not been continually engaged in the process of reining in a three-legged and never-before-leashed socialite built of pure muscle, I would have done the responsible thing and gone back to clean it up. The cruel world being what it is, I was not afforded the opportunity, and instead was treated to the spectacle of watching the 85% of the Mutt-n-Strutters who all took off before we were able to get our krewe together to join their walk, dance around and wrinkle their noses up at the trail of pudding poop and tidy little pile left on Mercy’s outward bound voyage.
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