Sour, Sour Juno: Victim, or Evil Mastermind?

This evening I went out on the porch to spend some time with Puppy Jack. Of course that also meant time with my sweet, sweet Juno. No favorites here!

When The Pony goes inside to put Jack's evening meal on a paper plate, he is also instructed to bring something for Juno. She usually gets leftovers. Just a snack. Just so she knows that when Jack is being fed, she will get a treat. Yes, I know people food is bad for dogs. So are chicken bones, but dogs have been eating chickens since the first egg/chicken debate, and most certainly do not discard the bones. Not that Juno has been getting any bones. The gas station chicken store may go out of business, what with Val's four-month moratorium on their bread-and-butter.

Anyhoo...some evenings, Juno gets a Philly Cheese Steak Hot Pocket. They've been in Frig II's freezer for over a year. One minute in the microwave, and one is chewable enough for Juno. I started out tearing them apart, so she could sniff the filling, but Juno is not so delicate, not so discerning in telling food from fingers. Now I hand her the whole thing, and she trots down the porch steps, drool dripping, and eats it on the big flat rock beside Hick's brick sidewalk.

One night Juno had sweet & sour chicken left from The Pony's meal. Not the sauce. That's crazy! Juno is a DOG, by cracky! She doesn't need sweet & sour sauce! She got the chicken chunks. A pizza slice here, a cold boneless skinless lemon pepper chicken breast there, some Stovetop Stuffing...Juno is none too picky when accepting a treat.

While Jack eats his blobs of canned puppy chicken, Juno gives him the side-eye. But she stays away. Always the lady. I pet her and she lovingly gazes up into my eyes, she sitting on my red-Croc-ed feet, me sitting on Hick's porch pew. Yes, I stroke her silky fur, telling her I understand how she was mistaken for an egg-eater, what with that egg found in her mouth by The Pony yesterday morning, and that egg laying on the porch when Hick came home from work yesterday evening.

Tonight, I did not stroke my sweet, sweet Juno. In fact, I told her, "NO! Get out of here!"

Juno was not sweet, sweet. Juno was not even sweet.

JUNO HAD POOP ALL OVER HER SHOULDERS!

Seriously! How does this even happen? Nothing on her face. Nothing on her back. Nothing on her feet. But not-even-dried brown poop stinking up the ends of her silky black fur, all over her left shoulder, her right shoulder, the ruff of fur across her shoulder blades. It was as if she had stood under the tail of a horse/mule/jackass/cow while they released a torrent of liquid diarrhea.

Poor, poor Juno. She is not used to falling out of favor. But she knew. Oh, yes. She KNEW. Did she not stay down in the yard at first, looking up on the porch at me apologetically? Did she not walk slowly up the steps, and hesitantly down the porch, until she got in front of me, not leaning, not putting her head on my belly? Did she not stand there, still, not touching, while I leaned over and took a whiff? And turn, tuck her tail, duck her head, and slink back to the yard after I said, "NO! Get out of here?" Yes. Yes, she did. Poor, poor Juno.

I sent Hick a text. "Why is there poop all over Juno's neck?" He did not respond. I was sure he had something to do with it. It was almost as if a bucket of poop was poured on her. Hick returned on his tractor from where he had been visiting up the road. He denied any knowledge of poop on Juno's neck.

"I don't know, Val. She went with us up to the other property, and she got in the creek. I don't know where she got poop on her."

Let the record show that Hick must have been talking about a mouse in his pocket. The Pony did not go with him to the other property up on the hill. And HOS was here this morning, not this afternoon. Juno was fine when I last saw her then. Let the record further show that there is no livestock up on that other property. That on the way there, one passes a field with a horse and a pony, and the field with the neighbor's three horses right across from us. Juno has never been covered in poop before. In fact, she does not even roll on dead things.

All I can think of to solve this mystery is the fact that two days ago, Hick put flea & tick medicine on Juno. From a squeeze tube of liquid, on the skin right between her shoulder blades.

Hmm...perhaps my formerly sweet, sweet Juno is an evil mastermind, and devised a method of ridding herself of that flea & tick medicine.

If the poop didn't do it, the bath she's going to get tomorrow will.