Good boy.

We recently had to put down one of the labradorks. He was a goofy brown 13 year old and this post is not about how sad it was and how much we miss him and how the 11 year old kid couldn't catch his breath in his sleep he cried so hard or how the 14 year old giant kid wept silently save for the big giant kid tears plopping on his geometry homework.  I'm not going to write that post, you are not going to cry. Go ahead and read it even if you're wearing regular mascara.

Although I totally wrote that post. Then I deleted it though because, ugh.

Anyway, this post is about how, in his final months on this planet said labradork lost control of a few key bodily functions, one of them the ability to keep all his parts tense as he stood up, slept or walk. At the same time, standing up, sleeping and walking also came with greater strain. These factors combined created what scientists call "poop balls." Okay, not scientists, just us.

Each time the poor old dude would struggle to get up, plop. Poop ball.

He'd chase bunnies in his sleep. Poop ball.

Grazing on the front lawn when someone lit a firecracker. Array of poop balls up the front steps.

We started calling him Poopball.

Admittedly, we let it go on too long, but it really wasn't that bad hopping around the house, using my iPhone as a flashlight to avoid kicking them on late night bathroom trips. It wasn't like it was big gross dog piles of poop. Just cute poop balls. More like rabbit pellets. Really big rabbit pellets. And the fact that it really embarrassed him sort of made it forgivable. He'd look behind him with his gray eyebrows raised and then look at me as if to say, "How in the hell did the bulldog do that back there?" And I would look at him and say, "I dunno, brownie. Bulldogs are sneaky." Because when you're 91 in dog years you deserve a little dignity I think.

We did, however, go through a lot of plastic bags picking them up. In fact, there were times when I would ask for double bags at the grocery store just so we'd have enough to keep the poop balls in check. One of the last times I was doing this, I got the evil eye from the lady behind me in line. She is typical for my grocery store in that she was wearing yoga clothes and $30k worth of jewelry, holding the keys to a European SUV and looking down a surgically-altered nose to shun my use of plastic bags.

I smiled sweetly at her and said, "Would you prefer I picked up dog shit with your Whole Foods bag?"

Apparently she did not prefer that.

In any case, RIP Sedgwick Fletcher's Honor. AKA: Sedgie. AKA: Browndog AKA: Poopball. You were a good dog. A very good brown dog.