And I Shall Be Known As "Runs With Poop"

The dog pissed on me.

In full glory, in front of man and beast, the little shit lifted his leg and marked my shoe.

I’ve always hated dachshunds.

So began the Muddy Paws 5k trail run, nothing between breaking my ankles on wet rocks and victory except some little dog taking a leak on me. I’d entered my rotund 5 year old Boxer, MoJay, after my attempts at convincing a co-worker to don a dog collar and fake tail ran into some resistance. We were a team, Mo & I, even though he had no idea what was coming when I loaded him in the truck.

I’m no runner, this is a fact. I made a pact with myself in November of 2010 to run at least one 5k race a month, and outside of nearly crippling myself and missing February, I’ve held to it. My only goals? To not die and to pull in times under 30 minutes. Nothing wild. Nothing crazy. So far, I’ve been successful in narrowly avoiding the grip of the Grim Reaper, and my times have all been sub -30. The best? 28:20. I might add that I beat several children in blue jeans in one of my races, and I consider that to make me a “winner”, even if their parents didn’t appreciate my hockey-style elbowing of their kids towards the front of the pack. Hey, it’s a vicious world out there.

Meanwhile, as I’m registering at the race table for this run, I hear a woman yell loudly “NO, ROCKY! NO!” I assume any dog named “Rocky” is a tiny ankle biter, the name being bestowed as a form of compensation. Short dog, short dog syndrome.  AND THEN THE SMELL HIT ME. I turned around and, as yellow humiliation was dripping off my shoe, the dog cast me a hairy eyeball, as if to say, “Yeah, that’s right, you belong to me.” I was overcome with the urge to punt the little bastard across the park, but felt that might not be the right way to start the day, making friends like that. However ballsy the dog was feeling, the owner had no such compunctions. She was staring up at the treetops, as though she had no idea I just heard her yelling at Rocky before he soiled me. I looked at her and said “you do realize your dog just pissed on me, right?” She couldn’t deny it, yet she finally said something like “oh, really? Did MY dog do that?” Yeah, lady, he’s practically bragging about it to the other dogs at this point, and I smell like rancid urine. I’m also pretty sure I saw my dog laughing at me over the issue as he spent time inspecting the asses of every dog with which he came into contact.

Fine, pissant hounds. Let’s run this thing. Earbuds in, the start is given, and next thing I know, MoJay is dragging me through the woods, following the trails all on his own. We’re bounding past the marker flags, through the water, back up a hill, annnnnnd wait. Let’s stop and take a dump right here. Really, MoJay? Right here? Yup, right here, so all the pretty she-dogs and their owners can catch a peek at my hound copping a squat in a regal fashion. So grateful they provided us bags to pick it up, because what would make this even better would be to tote a bag of shit for a few miles. Thankfully there was a fireman buddy close by, as the race was put on by his wife’s organization, and he was monitoring the whole thing. He was upstanding about taking the sack of poo from me, and we trucked back down into the woods.

And there he was.

The Pisser.

Getting carried up a hill, a smug look of triumph on his stupid little dachshund face, The Pisser was back. Had it not been for the consequences, I may well have punched the dog in the face just to even the score. His owner/servant had a look of resigned despair on her face, probably realizing it would be hard to cross the stream with a dog 8 inches tall. I would’ve gladly drug him through, but refrained from making the offer. No time, though – MoJay was dragging me back down the trail, furiously intent on catching up to the hind end of some glorious female that was driving him plum loco. For a fat bastard, that dog was moving like a wildfire, slobbbery goo flying back and nailing me in the legs.

And then we rounded one last corner, covered in mud, slobber and and exhaustion, both our tongues hanging out. There was the finish line, right there in front of us. Weird. That didn’t seem that bad. Maybe I’ll do better being drug by a dog for miles through the woods as opposed to just elbowing kids out of the way on the pavement. Best of all, there was no Pisser in sight. Maybe he ran into a tree trying to mark it from his owners arms.

My time?

24:11.

Wow. Nice job, MoJay. Good dog.