Everyone and their Dog has a Dog

I first started noticing dog walkers when I lived about a block away from the river valley in Edmonton. If you sit by the window long enough, you'll start to notice a pattern in Edmonton. Once a year, there's this day at the end of winter and the beginning of spring (this day can occur quite randomly). It's the day where it's warm enough outside to NOT FREEZE YOUR FACE OFF. That's the day people who haven't walked their dogs all winter will get outside and walk their K9 friend. Then they keep on walking them until the corresponding day in fall where if you go outside you will FREEZE YOUR FACE OFF. The people who continue to walk their dog in winter are few, and they usually have a nicotine addiction.

Here on the Island, everyone has a dog. Today I walked past a car with this huge line of white stick figures indicating their family members. They had four dogs. So, if you sit in my living room and open the blinds, you will see a healthy parade of dogs go by. And it never gets SO COLD IT WILL FREEZE YOUR FACE OFF here, so there are plenty of pooches to approve of.

So, the other night, I was taking out compost or something and as I stepped onto my front porch and I saw this enormous coil of poop up the steps, just feet from my front door. And I thought that the dog walkers of this place had gone out of control. Seriously? Poop on my front step? Get a leash! Get a baggie! The deer around here aren't that much bigger than big dogs, so I guessed it might have been a deer, but on my front step? I was not happy. And that crap wasn't staying there.

I went to clean it up and BOOM! I was very apologetic to the dog owners of the area. It wasn't poop. It was the BIGGEST slug I'd ever seen in my life. It was really fat and in the dark, I couldn't tell it wasn't poop until I got too close to it to ever forget what I saw. Ew! I am not afraid of spiders. I actually sort of like them and before this incident the biggest slug I'd ever seen was on the road here. He was dark brown and really long. Actually, I mistook him for a branch. You know, part of a broken branch. But he wasn't on my step.

I went and got my husband. That's boy work if I ever saw it. He grabbed a hoe and was like, “Are you sure you want me to get rid of him? It probably took him forever to get up here.”

Just to be clear, all we were discussing was whether or not to get him off the porch and the answer was yes. Yes, please.

So, to those in Alberta who are at present freezing their faces off, remember that big creepy bugs don't live there.