I'm not a gambling man, however...

My dog is a Great Dane. A small Great Dane, as Danes go, but that still makes him much bigger than most dogs out there. In the 11 years of his (long lived) life, ten of those were miraculous, in a dog sense, as in that entire time I never once witnessed him do a shit in public. You see people walking their dogs, lead in one hand and a plastic bag in the other, waiting inevitably for their pooch to finally find a spot where it will think "THIS! This is the place!" and then do their business.

I never used to have to worry about that, until about a year ago, he spontaneously let a bundle drop on our nightly walk. I was aghast, as I've never had to carry a plastic bag, and had no way to clear it away. I told him "I do hope that was a one off, you silly dog, you."
Fast forward to now, and he pretty much shits every single night. The catch though, is that, in his dotage, it would appear that his sphincter just isn't up to the task of holding those huge Great Dane turds inside the bomb bay. So rather than him sniff for a place to drop a length of dirty spine, he just keeps walking as he does it, almost completely unawares. The only signal I get is a gentle tug on the lead that alerts me to the fact that he is dragging behind, his back legs slightly hunched up, dropping a Thora every few metres. I sigh, and he just looks at me with that classic 'what?' expression.

All this I explain because I have made a gambling game out of it, called 'Surprise! Shit.' The rules are simple, in that I try to guess at which point on our walk he will start lagging behind, dropping copper bolts. Today I guessed he would do it before the main road, but the joke was on me, as he did it outside the pub. I reckon I'm averaging 50/50, but I aim to get better, because there's fuck all else to do when walking the dog, except think of tits.

The thing is, there is a mystery to this. He still shits in the backyard. By a simple ratio comparing the food I give him, versus the mountains of dog muck I pick up, the evidence is strongly in favour of the fact that he shits more than he eats. I wish that show Unexplained Mysteries was still around.