Zoey and the Goldfish Cracker
Zoey is an interesting creature. I've documented a few of her weirdnesses, but I've never really talked at length about why she cracks me up. So I thought I'd share something she did last summer that not only made me cry from laughing but also got me to stop eating goldfish crackers. You know the one. When you open a bag, you can just smell the overdose of cheese used to make it. Then, if you have more than five crackers, your fingertips now show it, likely an orange-yellow color. And lastly, and typically unavoidable, the crumbs on your clothes, the couch, the floor. But, goldfish crackers are one of those childhood staples, that all Americans learn to like growing up. Well, Zoey didn't get that memo.
So a little background. About 2 blocks away from my old building in Seattle, where I used to take Zoey on her walk, there was a little girl that was always carrying some sort of snack. I think her mom would pick her up from daycare and get home pretty much at the same time that I took Zoey out for her walk, so we always ran into them. And every day, the girl did not want to go inside, so she'd throw a tantrum and whatever was in her hands ended up on the ground. Zoey and I stepped around Barbies, milk cartons, backpacks, ice cream, cookies, and the little girl herself, when she simply sat down and refused to go in. Anyway, this day, she dropped a few goldfish crackers just after we'd passed them, so on the way back I knew we'd run into them.
Now, Zoey is extremely curious about anything that's on the ground, whether it's food or not, and especially when it's not food and moving (read bugs). When I see that it's not something that's going to hurt her, I typically let her check it out. She usually figures out that it's not worth sticking her tongue on the ground and we move on.
And a little more background, a bit towards the gross side this time. I swear Zoey is part male dog, because she insists on not only peeing with one leg raised, but she fricking pees about 10 times during a one-hour walk. I've asked the vet about it and we even double checked with an x-ray to make sure she didn't have a kidney stone or something else that could be causing this, but no, nothing. He says she's just very alpha and dominant (unless she's in a new place, then she's a total coward). But not only does she pee 10 times, she is very strategic about choosing her spots to mark. If there's a dog walking in front of us, she will go and pee right on top of wherever the other dog just went. Fire hydrants, telephone poles, trash cans, consider them marked. But she takes it one step further. Every bird poop that we go by, she pees right on it. Now, we're not talking about close to it by coincidence or she just needed to go right when we walked by it. Nope. Every bird poop on the ground, she investigates, takes two steps, and pees on it, with deadly accuracy.
So, back to the goldfish cracker. When we were returning home, I saw a lone goldfish cracker on the ground. I doubted one cracker would hurt her, so I let her smell it out. Instead of picking it up, she took two steps and peed on it! I kid you not. There was nothing around it, so she did not confuse it with bird poop or anything else. She went and smelled it and determined that it was just as gross as bird poop, so that she should pee on it. I laughed so hard, while she just did her business and looked at me like the most innocent little thing. And that is how I stopped eating Cheddar Goldfish Crackers.
