Thursday, August 21, 2008

Something is going on

It happened again.

Washington D.C. has a lot of people living in it. It also has a lot of dogs living in it. Because of how ratios work, you'd expect that moving from a place with a few people to a place with a lot of people would also indicate an increased number of dogs around, and you'd be right. This is a perfectly rational thing to expect.

What you might not expect is the increase in the rate at which these dogs digest. Well, maybe not the rate. I'm not saying the city is slathered with a layer of dog shit - quite the contrary, in fact. In a city with such a high population density, it wouldn't be surprising to see piles of unclaimed dog shit disconsolately moping about the sidewalks. In fact, it's surprising that you don't see it. DC apparently puts a lot of effort into keeping itself clean, whether with roving bands of street trash collectors or harsh littering and dog shit-disownment laws.

No, litter (biological or otherwise) is not the issue. The issue is that every single time I have seen a dog in this city, it has - without fail - been engaged in the act of shitting.

I am not exaggerating in any way. The occurrences are frequent and well-documented. I'll be walking along the sidewalk, and there, some thirty yards in front of me, is a single adult, apparently completely sane. He is staring expectantly at the ground. He is obscured from the waist down by a newspaper box or trash can. I wonder what he's paying such close attention to - if he just dropped his phone down a sewer, or maybe his toddler is taking its first steps. It's his unbreakable attention that draws me in - people who look bored might as well be invisible to me. But these people are never bored, at least in public. He is rapt, and of course I have to see what's going on.

As I near the point of no return, I notice a small plastic shopping bag in his hand - the kind of bag someone might carry after buying a packet of two Advil from a drugstore. The leash is never visible at this point. Just as the angle is shifting and I start to see around the trash can, a faint breeze kicks up and the bag drifts sickeningly with it, far too easily. I can see that it's empty, but of course it's too late. Big or small, every dog strikes the same pose: hunched down yet on tiptoe, its butt sticking out, frozen. It looks like the Pope who realizes, halfway risen, that someone has left a large wad of gum on the seat of his throne. Back arched like a cat's, there is an expression on the dog's face that very clearly conveys the sentiment of "Take a picture; it lasts longer." It's an unpleasant scene to view, much less be involved in, but the owner doesn't bat an eye. He stands there for the entire production, staring unflinchingly at his own personal logging industry.

The scene is one that has become grotesquely familiar, but (cruelly) only in retrospect. For some reason I am unable to recognize the danger until after it's too late. It doesn't help that variations have started to spring up. Now and then an entire family will be in the audience. There are two dogs, presumably engaged in some sort of competition. This dog is merely pissing.

The fact that the city is not awash with dog shit leads me to some troubling conclusions. The dogs in the city clearly don't have freakishly active metabolisms. Kayleigh suggested that something about my presence is the cause, and I'm having a hard time disproving that hypothesis. The fact that the act is in progress before I arrive is immaterial - everyone knows dogs have an acute and long-range sense of smell. Is there something about my personal scent that serves as a fast-acting canine laxative? I don't want to go to any lengths to verify such a theory. Despite the lack of effort on my part, however, the evidence is piling up.