Shit happens sometimes...literally

 Disclaimer: You may not want to read this post while or within a couple of hours of eating...

Misty giving me the stink eye for snapping a shot of her behind 🤨

Picking up where we left off on the last post...this is where Misty prefers to poop nowadays--yup, while lying down on her bed. I'm afraid there's really no way to sugarcoat this topic. It's taken us many months of trying to deny and fight against and many more months of coming to a point of acceptance. Historically, Misty never had a regular bowel movement schedule, unlike her brother Jasper who will go within a couple of minutes of being outside, like clockwork. Her schedule was more like every other day, give or take, and that was never an issue. On the days she did go, she always had to roam and sniff out her "spot" for good 10 minutes, then another 5 minutes of pacing back and forth, and then finally a minute of doing the circle dance before it's finally a go.

Fast forward 13 years and 11 months, she can barely walk now, so her slow loss of muscular functions needed for a bowel movement is only natural. Makes perfect sense logically, but I have to admit that when the accidents started to happen more frequently about the middle of last summer, it was still really hard for us to come to grips with. We started to obsess over her bowel movements, everything from trying to time it, trying fiber rich diet and even trying various massage techniques. We even tried squirting water into her anus with a water bottle to facilitate contraction after reading some success stories on the internet...that, along with everything else we tried, was a hit-or-miss.

Last December, we hit the peak of our stress level in dealing with the issue. Thinking that she just needed more time, we would walk in the park for 30+ minutes at a time which is way too long for Misty to be able to stay on her feet. Poor girl would sniff aimlessly and struggle to walk, to the point of exhaustion. One time in cold, pouring rain, she walked and walked, and finally just collapsed. It was so hard to see her struggling and we felt so helpless. The elevated stress led to the two of us constantly getting into small arguments and the mounting tension finally erupted on New Year's Eve when we had a major blowout. Both of us cried out of frustrations and that's when we decided that something had to change within us. Only when we accepted that the situation is out of our control that we started to be at peace with it. We stopped letting our minds be consumed with when her next bowel movement will be and carried on with our normal walk/outside schedule and rest of our lives. Sometimes things work out and she'll be successful while we're outside, but other times we are dealing with it indoors. She's in her diaper which helps to keep "it" contained, and we've gotten really good at cleaning up at a lightening speed.

What still baffles us though is why she would sometimes go for a nice walk and then as soon as we get inside and she lies down on her bed, decide to go right at that moment. We have our guesses for this:

1. It's physiological--she's putting pressure while trying to lie down, which causes involuntary muscle contraction. (most likely answer)
2. It's a case of dog dementia and she's confused of her surroundings. (she does have few symptoms of it)
3. It's psychological and comforting for her to go in a safe environment. (not terribly convincing...)

We suspect the answer is probably a combination of all of the above. 💩💩💩