How Do You Win The Dog Poop Lottery?

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 14.472% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

I don’t think it will surprise anyone to find out our dog poops.  And we take her for three daily walks, during which she poops twice.
I refer to being on a poop-laden walk as “Winning the Dog Poop Lottery.”
Gini disagrees.  What you have won on the trip, she claims, is a bag of warm dog shit, and really that’s no prize.  She claims she has won the lottery when she returns empty-handed.
What kind of lottery is that, say I?  There’s no sane lottery where “not winning” is considered a prize.  Sure, you have the occasional outliers like Shirley Jackson and the Vietnam drafts, but those are sufficient exceptions that nobody thinks of them.  No, lotteries involve prizes, and you win them.  This is a pretty crappy lottery – sorry – but you can’t claim victory when you don’t get a prize.
We’re at odds.  I’ll say I won and she thinks that Shasta didn’t poop.  She’ll say she lost and I think that Shasta didn’t poop.
So I turn to you, dear reader: What conditions define victory in the Dog Poop Lottery?  Please phrase all answers in the form of an essay.

8 Comments

  1. Little Ribbit
    Sep 16, 2013

    You and Gini are both wrong. Winning the lottery isn’t about whether or not Shasta poops, as that is the entire point of the walk. If she doesn’t poop on one walk it only delays the inevitable.
    Rather, winning is being able to pick up said poop completely cleanly: well-formed turds that do not smear or squish, do not leave a visible mark on the ground, and can be readily picked up with one scoop in a single bag. Your hands remain clean, and the only signs that a dog has pooped on that bit of grass are a relieved doggie trotting away and a little plastic baggie in her owner’s hand.
    You’re welcome.

  2. Mishell Baker
    Sep 16, 2013

    Paragraph 1: State Your Thesis. Coming home poop-free is winning the dog poop lottery.
    Paragraph 2: Supporting Fact. By your own logic comparing the dog poop lottery to other lotteries, there is also no sane lottery in which the chances of winning outnumber the chances of losing.
    Paragraph 3: Supporting Fact. The word “win” is without exception used to denote a positive outcome, thus its current colloquial usage “made of win,” and no one could describe a bag full of dog poop as a positive outcome, much less “made of win.”
    Paragraph 4: Supporting Fact. You are not in fact coming home empty-handed — the poop is merely in a different and more convenient container: the dog — and therefore your argument against the empty bag as a “win” is also faulty.
    Paragraph 5: Conclusion. Your wife is right. Your wife is probably always right.

    • Joe
      Sep 17, 2013

      Mishell wrote pretty much what I was going to. “Win” means positive outcome, and also usually has a smaller chance than losing.
      Also, while I agree with you that ‘winning’ needs to involve a ‘prize’, I disagree that this prize has to be a tangible, physical object. I would state that, in this case, the good feelings gained when you realise you don’t have to pick up and carry the dog poop home is a ‘prize’ in itself.
      Your wife is right, once again.

  3. Ashley
    Sep 16, 2013

    I agree with you, even though I don’t enjoy picking up poop on walks. I used to have a dog that had bathroom issues and would hold it and hold it and hold it at our house, but would go on our walks. It was always great knowing that the dog had actually gone to the bathroom and was more comfortable now. My current dog isn’t like that, but if given the chance she’ll go 3 or 4 times a day. In her case, the more pooping we can get out of the way early, the less standing around I’ll have to do when I take her out in the yard when it’s cold or rainy or I want to get back to work or tv…so it’s still a win when she poops on walks, which is time I’ve fully devoted to her pleasure.

  4. Rachel
    Sep 16, 2013

    Winning the dog poop lottery would have to entail having a dog that poops in small amounts, and without an excessive amount of soft/runny fecal matter.
    The dog is going to poop no matter what. But how much, and the consistency, could put you well ahead of the other participants in this lottery.

  5. Paul
    Sep 16, 2013

    Winning the dog poop lottery is not having to clean it up. Whether that means you live on a farm and it’s just par for the course, or there’s nothing to clean up, the only win is the empty hand.

  6. Steve
    Sep 16, 2013

    As often happens, fiction has anticipated reality. In the immortal words of Joshua, from the movie “War Games”, the only winning move is not to play.
    In other words, Gini’s right. Again.

  7. tess
    Sep 16, 2013

    In my opinion, winning the dog-poop lottery would have to entail having a dog that occasionally pooped gold. Or some other form of currency. Or at least something valuable.
    So, you’re both wrong, and neither of you is winning anything 🙂

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