Le Toilet de Fips

Fips spends a lot of time curled up at my feet under the desk. I can’t quite tell whether he is sulking or just likes this womb-like cubby-hole. I like having him there and hope he’s happy.

On the other hand, Michael does most of the outing and Fips is always eager for a walk, scrambling out from under and scampering down the hallway whenever Michael says whatever it is he says in German.

Fips is still a young puppy and Michael is gradually extending the length of their pad-abouts. We are fortunate to live on the lakeshore as this provides a nice greenbelt that is 3 miles in circumference, which allows Fips to sniff bushes and walk on the sidewalk, grass or dirt path along the water’s edge as he likes. The other day, Michael returned and proudly announced that they had walked up to Grand Avenue, a little over a half a mile a way. This is certainly building up Fips’s hind legs, or “gambies” as I call them.

Although not as much as Mike, I take Fips out as well. He is just as eager and runs to the elevator door where he waits, in evident impatience, for the exact grinding sound that indicates the lift has arrived. Once at ground level, he chases down the hallway to the glass front door where he waits with his tail wagging furiously. There is no point in trying to restrain him. and I just let him bolt forth.

Once we’ve chased over to the grass, the sniffing and pissing begins. But when it comes to pooping, Fips is the oddest dog I’ve ever seen. It was the first time I took him out when, as we were passing a large patch of ground Ivy, Fips suddenly stopped, sniffed and then carefully turned around, backed into the foliage and pooped. It was so discrete, I had to laugh.

Unlike other dogs, Fips never simply stops and poops wherever. He always looks for something to poop into or against, whether it is foliage, a bush, the trunk of a tree or, if worse comes to worse, the base of a hydrant.

A little dance always accompanies le toilet de Fips. He stops, sniffs, turns left and sniffs, turns right and sniffs, left again, right again, and when he has thus radar’d the exact spot, turns around and hunches for the poop. Michael said he did this from the beginning.

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