It was an unsuspecting Friday evening two years ago, approximately one week after I first met my sweet and adorable 10-week-old shih poo, named Io. My parents and I had brought Io home from a family whose toddler no longer cared for their young dog. I was no toddler, so I was determined to give Io all the attention he wanted.
My little cloud of fluff was happily prancing around the living room with my slightly older bernedoodle, when I decided to pick him up and carry him to my room.
For a solid 60 seconds, life was peaches and roses. My adorable puppy made himself comfortable by plopping down into a pushup stance on top of my desktop keyboard, and I was ecstatic. Everything was perfect.
That was, until, little old me saw a slightly clear, slightly yellow, slightly pungent liquid seeping onto the rest of my table.
Confused and entering the first stage of grief (denial), I stared at my dog’s brown and white-blob body until he finally stood up. After I inspected the yellow liquid more closely, I was in shock. I froze. The innocent little boy had peed — and it was directly onto my laptop’s keyboard.
Obviously, I was in a panic. I needed to clean up the mess before my keyboard and the rest of my desk took on the smell of rotten trash cans in the mall. But before that, I needed to transport this little man back into the backyard before he decided to preemptively pee some more — I wasn’t familiar with Io’s peeing habits, and if he chose to unleash another stream of yellow tinkle on any of my papers, I was going to have an emotional breakdown.
In my reckless panic, I picked him up in one brisk motion. But the thought of his possibly not-empty bladder interrupted my movement, and I winced as my fingers flinched into a loosened grip, and my elbows extended in an attempt to distance a possible urine bomb. This was a mistake: Io started wiggling desperately, and seconds later, with a thud, poor Io’s back hit my hardwood floor.
Thankfully, nothing happened afterwards, but I was livid. I had a huge puddle of pee on my keyboard and a wriggling dog at my feet that I needed to evacuate and clean up after.
Eventually, I was able to get Io outside. I cleaned up my desk and thanked surface tension that the pee had not spread to any of my homework or notebooks (of course, I washed my hands with soap for 10 minutes after cleaning up the mess).
Finally, I replaced my desktop keyboard with a new one and have not lifted Io onto my computer desk ever since.
He’s also learned to save his pee for the wild grassy outdoors, so I have not had to re-experience that horrific accident again … knock on wood.
