WHATEVER HAPPENED to the white dogshit you used to see on sidewalks? You never see it anymore. Have dogs changed? Has something in the doggish diet been added or removed? All you see nowadays is dogshit in varying shades of brown. As I recollect, the white dogshit was usually dry, as though it had been there for a while; however, it seemed to appear all at once. But dryness alone isn't the whole answer, because I've seen dried out dogshit often, and all it gets is darker and less hazardous. Furthermore, not all dogshit was white, and in fact I have no recollection of seeing truly fresh white dogshit. But it was definitely commonplace, and now I can't recall seeing any for ever so long. The big advantage of white dogshit is that you never stepped in it, even at night. If you keep your wits about you, generally you can avoid stepping in dogshit during the day. But at night, it is a snare for the unwary. Since neither dogs nor dog owners are going to change their ways, and since we are likely to have dogshit on public sidewalks into the foreseeable future, I think it would be a real public service if dog food manufacturers would look into this and figure out how to make dogshit stand out again, the way it used to. Bring back the good old days, I say, dogshit and all.
December 13, 1996
3/17/99
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