The Fecal Fogs of Amarillo

Though a cat person, I really enjoy these dog-sits. In Tucson last month, I chaperoned Abigail the occasionally anxious dachshund whilst her momma was tromping around England.

And now in Armarillo, trying to match wits with a wily schnauzer named Dobby (pronounced: /dAHbi/). Ten days dogsitting, in this pretty little neighborhood, with neat brick homes, trim lawns, and a little park nearby.

Dobby is to be walked twice a day. We take the alleys, so that she can antagonize as many of the doggies stuck in their back yards as she can.

Oh the sniffing, the barking, the bodily functions. Such happy times for a dog. The routine: entice other dogs to fence. Sniff, growl, bark. Repeat as necessary. Then urinate on something as you turn away. That's something I want to get good at: urinating in disdain...

We take these neighborhood tours early in the morning and quite late at night, cuz it's 100 degrees outside. On occasion Phil takes me to visit various friends or do errands. Amarillo seems like a nice place. It kinda drives me crazy that they water their lawns like they're in a contest, despite a long and nasty drought, but hey, we're in Texas, which is spelled "d-e-n-i-a-l", so what do you expect?

The other biggie that Amarillians are in denial about: airborne fecal matter. When the wind is blowing the right way, it's pretty fucking nasty.

Where's that coming from, you ask? About 50 miles from Amarillo is the bustling town of Hereford, Texas, with a million residents: 15,000 humans and 985,000 head of cattle.

Cattle farts, times one million. With all this methane, people here don't need matches to light their cigarette.

I am told that back in the day, the wind-borne smell was only "occasional," and so the distant tinge of natural fertilizer was tolerable, or at least to Texans. But nowadays, the operation has been beefed up and a million cattle stand where there were but a few thousand. What's worse, the antibiotics and hormones that go into plumping up the beef get "processed" and released into the air by those million head of cattle. (Well, you know, not the head...)

These additives make a tart super-toxin out of the floating cattle-farts. (Add it to diesel exhaust and you've got a super-efficient carcinogen delivery system.)

So when the wind is blowing just the right way, your eyes smart, your nose burns, you keep your mouth shut and you get your ass back indoors.

Fortunately, the Shit Winds of Hereford only blow in Amarillo's direction about 25% of the time, and it's a pleasant place otherwise. I mean that. I'm not saying that because of the looming trip back to Nara Visa...

Not to be outdone, Phil takes his cat Smokey for a walk, too.