A Six Year Old Wonders

In the middle of dinner my son tells me that he has a question. He wants to know something about dogs. After a brief pause and a sip of water he says:

“Dad, when people go to the bathroom we have to wipe our tushies, but I have never seen a dog wipe his butt. Why don’t they use toilet paper?”

Being the good kindly old man I am, I immediately sighed with relief. It wasn’t that hard a question to answer. All I need to do is provide a simple, logical answer why a dog doesn’t need to wipe his ass. And then I realized that I didn’t know the answer. For a moment I surveyed the room to see if there was a good resource to use to answer the question.

On the bookshelf across the way I noticed a Star Wars book and immediately became fixated upon it. Or should I say that I immediately wondered about Chewbacca and Wookie bathroom habits. Kind of an odd thought and a strange juxtaposition, but sometimes you just have to go with where life takes you.

So I told the big boy that I wasn’t exactly sure, but that we could research it together. Due to an impending bedtime the research was put off but I know that within the next day or two the question will resurface. I think that it is time to call the vet or resort to making some stupid joke about how dogs use cats.

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9 Comments

  1. Jack's Shack May 18, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Michael,

    🙂

  2. Michael May 17, 2007 at 1:22 pm

    Jack:
    My 4-yr-old daughter asked the same thing about our parrot.

    Fortunately, she had to go to gan before I could answer, and had forgotten the question by the time we got home.

    Re: dogs: isn’t that why they wag their tail?

  3. Jack's Shack May 16, 2007 at 5:56 am

    I don’t like carpet all that much. Hardwood is much nicer.

    Miriam,

    Why not?

    Benning,

    Feh. OOh.

  4. benning May 16, 2007 at 1:30 am

    No thumbs; long tongue. Easy, no?

    Heheheee!

  5. Miriam L May 15, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    Jack, you really don’t want to know.

  6. Mark May 15, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    “Ah, I see.”

    Yes, you see why dog owners spend a bundle on carpet cleaning, or replace it with hardwood, like us.

    Nothing a Swiffer Wetjet can’t handle.

  7. Jack's Shack May 15, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    Ah, I see.

  8. The Babka Nosher May 15, 2007 at 12:35 pm

    Mark is right. A lack of opposable thumbs precludes them from using toilet paper. That’s why G-d made them so amazingly flexible.

  9. Mark May 15, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    They don’t use toilet paper because they don’t have hands. They have paws.

    That’s why they use the carpet.

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