Stella is my dog. #1 is commonly known as the term for urinating.
Stella is quite gifted. Urinating on a city sidewalk is disgusting.
Now that the tone’s been set, let’s dig into the nitty gritty, which is probably the best way to describe how female dogs urinate. Male dogs lift one leg and point their instrument toward something, like a fire hydrant or a tree. Females play a different instrument requiring a different posturing.
Think trumpet and then the double bass violin. Point and squat.
So now that Stella is (reluctantly) a city dog, she’s hit a bunch of roadblocks not being able to pee on grass. Grass is all she’s ever known, much like humans pretty much much know ceramics. It was apparent she needed some traction to support her second position (squat) and she has a really wide and low second position. Well that works on grass but on a gritty filthy city sidewalk it’s pretty gross.
So first we tried these tint brick squares that contain the dirt for a tree. That seemed to work assuming she wasn’t distracted by a car horn or people passing by. Her favorite was right next to a street vendor selling pulled pork her morning shift was fairly seamless. Until one week when it rained every single day. Well the brick squares turned into little lakes of dirty water. Ugh. She’d emerge with her paws soaked in a mix of dirt, water, urine and god knows what else. Her private area was – let’s just say – unsanitary.
So here’s where the gifted part comes in. One day she started circling in for her landing on top of a street grate usually reserved for subway steam to exit. Well one word for that: genius. She was able to secure a firm grip thanks to the grate and her urine just disappeared into who knows where. I did check to make sure commuters weren’t getting a golden shower. They weren’t. People started to marvel at Stella’s tenacity to find this solution, and I beamed with pride every time she stuck her landing. Once in a while I’d catch a passerby examining her invention and I’d proudly announce that she learned it all by herself.
No more filth. No more muddy paws. Just a clean mission you could walk from with pride and a sense that you did your civic duty by keeping the streets clean.
Except for the one day she started to circle into her square on a grate with a much wider grid and her hind legs fell through it.
That mishap never happened again.
Ya see, Stella’s gifted with city savvy though still not a fan.