Wednesday, May 31, 2006

 

Oreo and the Toilet

There’s one thing they don’t talk about in "The Giant Handbook of Dog Care" - poop disposal. What are you supposed to do with the mountain of canine excrement that you collect over the endless days of your dog’s existence?

As I previously noted, I thought that the easy approach would be to dump Oreo’s leavings in the wheeled composting bin that the garbage collectors empty every week. But ever since I dumped some dog poop in the bottom of the container and it stuck there for weeks on end, my wife Cheryl has disabused me of this green option.

According to Cheryl, the environmentally responsible approach to canine waste disposal is to flush it down the toilet. The idea is that Oreo’s fecal matter can then be processed by the city sanitation system just like ours is. After all, he is a member of the family.

Despite my misgivings, flushing Oreo’s crap down the toilet has been the preferred method of disposal for some time now. And since I rarely collect the stuff, it didn’t really matter that much to me.

Recently, however, I had to mow the backyard. Thanks to Oreo, that chore now has an additional preliminary step: clean up the poop.

So I dutifully collected a moundful of the stuff on a plastic gardening plate. I momentarily considered dumping it in the compost collector but, given Cheryl’s strong admonition against this alternative, I decided instead to unload the plate into the toilet. I flushed and went back to my lawn mowing.

In retrospect, it was probably not a good idea to put a big load of dog poop in the toilet all at one time, particularly when some of the stuff had dried out and was pretty hard. In retrospect, I probably should have dumped this particular load in the compost collector, particularly since it was already half full of grass and weeds and there was little chance of the poop clogging up the bottom. In retrospect, we probably should never have gotten a dog.

That night we started to experience some minor difficulties with the toilet. Occasionally the bowl would not empty completely. But then it would and I figured whatever problem there was had disappeared.

By the next day, however, the bowl was not emptying completely at all. It started to dawn on me that maybe some of Oreo’s poop was plugging the drain. I brought out our old standard plunger and made a few attempts at unblocking whatever was there.

My plunging attempts met with limited success. So the next day, I bought a new plunger specially designed for toilets. I brought it home and gave it a thorough workout. But rather than see increased water flow down the drain, I was experiencing less and less drainage.

Knowing my limitations, I finally gave up and called a plumber who promised to be there the next afternoon. But being somewhat obsessive, I checked out the Internet and looked for additional solutions.

One suggestion was to pour half a pail of warm water from about waist height directly into the toilet. The theory is that the additional pressure would assist in dislodging whatever was blocking the path. There was no indication why the water had to be warm but I’m guessing it is either to help soften the blockage or to make the chore less uncomfortable when water splashes all over the repairer.

Whatever the reason, I engaged in a frenzy of plunging and water pail emptying that left both me and the bathroom floor damp. But it appeared that no progress had been made.
So I gave up for the second time and cleaned up the water on the floor and put the plunger and the pail away. This was now definitely a job for the plumber.

But when I returned to the bathroom an hour later and tried one last flush, to my surprise, it worked. The water swirled and swirled and the bowl emptied completely. I waited patiently as the tank refilled and I tried again. Once more the water disappeared. A third and a fourth attempt were equally successful.

The next morning, I gave the toilet a final real life test and it passed. All my plunging and pail emptying and swearing and cursing had apparently worked. Our toilet was back to normal.

So I called the plumber and cancelled the appointment with the caveat that we might have to re-book soon. I’m still not convinced I got rid of the blockage entirely and I suspect we’re still going to be flushing at least some of Oreo’s poop down the toilet. So until such time as I can train him to use the toilet himself, I’m going to keep the plunger, pail and the plumber’s phone number close at hand.

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