Finding Joy in Chaos: The Puppy Poop Chronicles

A few months ago, we brought home a tiny, wiggly ball of fur who was meant to be my husband’s cancer therapy dog – Leo the Braque du Bourbonnais. The plan was beautiful: loyal companion, gentle snuggler, inspirational Hallmark sidekick, maybe a hunter. Life, as it tends to do, rewrote the script. My husband passed away almost two months ago. Literally not even two months ago. And now it’s just me and this four-legged chaos gremlin – along with the rest of the fur babies – trying to figure out what comes next.

Here’s one thing I did not anticipate in my grief journey: the sheer, staggering volume of poop produced by a creature who weighs approximately the same as a Thanksgiving turkey.

How. Much. Can. One. Puppy. Poop?

The output is wildly disproportionate to the input. He eats what appears to be three tablespoons of kibble and somehow manufactures a landfill. He hasn’t quite mastered the housebreaking routine so I’m often left following my nose to the mountain like I’ve just uncovered a scientific anomaly. It feels mathematically impossible. It smells scientifically impossible. I did not major in physics, but I’m fairly certain this violates at least two laws of thermodynamics.

And yet… here we are.

Every morning, he looks up at me with those big, innocent eyes, as if to say, “I have created something for you.” And he has. Repeatedly. Enthusiastically. With the confidence of an artist fully committed to his craft.

In the quiet of a house that feels too big and too still, there is something oddly grounding about this absurd routine. Grief is heavy and unpredictable. Puppy poop is neither. It is reliable. It is immediate. It demands action. You cannot existential-crisis your way out of it. You simply grab the tissue and handle it. Kind of like tears.

This was not the version of our story I imagined. The therapy dog without the patient. The widow (ewww, I hate that word) with a puppy who seems to be powered by a secret underground poop generator. But in the middle of heartbreak, there is this ridiculous, living reminder that life—messy, inconvenient, and biologically baffling—keeps going.

It may be mathematically impossible.

And yet, somehow, so is surviving the unbearable.

And yet… here we are… discussing poop and grief.

Two things I never thought I’d be discussing publicly… Very publicly.

Thank you, Marc, for pushing me out of my comfort zone… Always.