I Can Understand Why Muslims Think Dogs Are "Unclean"

The "clump" is circled above.

Dogs really can be nasty little rascals. Take, for example, my dogs' fascination with the cat litter box and any of its contents.

Late one evening, recently, I noticed Archie had snuck off to the back of the house. Normally, Archie and Dixie will hang out with me in the den during the evenings. They'll sit on the couch or a chair and sleep, eat or play.

But this night, Archie absconded to the back. Even Dixie was curious where he was at by the way she craned her neck up and stared down the hall. Within minutes, Archie rounded the corner and headed back towards us. Dixie hopped up and greeted him.

Dixie was especially interested in what Archie had in his mouth. I, too, became interested since I couldn't immediately tell just by looking at it. Whatever it was, Archie didn't want to give it up. Dixie went straight to his mouth, sniffed it and tried to get the foreign object out. Archie turned his head away.

Something didn't look right. I told Archie to come to me, forcefully, I might add. He slowly walked to me. Then I told him to "give me that." He did. He dropped it right into the palm of my hand. I saw that it was a urine-soaked clump of cat litter.

Why in the hell would that dog eat cat litter, especially soiled cat litter?

But I understood something at that moment: who was cleaning out the litter box. Before that incident, I remember asking my mom if she was cleaning out the litter box. "No" she said. "I haven't either" I thought. Odd. Was Dodo using the litter box?

If Dodo wasn't using the litter box, then he had to "hold it" overnight: possible but not probable. Once I saw Archie with the urine-soaked clump of litter in his mouth, I understood why my mom or I didn't have to clean out the litter box. Archie assumed the litter box cleaning chore for himself.