Let’s Talk About Love. True Love.

There are many ways to express your love for someone, as you know. A kiss when you wake up. Flowers. A serenade. A surprise treat. But you wouldn’t think of dog pee as an expression of love. Let me tell you a story of the ultimate expression of love.

Potter was a puppy and figuring out how to be a dog on a sailboat. Just like in our house, we have to housebreak a dog on the boat—so he doesn’t pee inside the cabin, or in the cockpit. We have a hose that we use to spray off the deck if they pee. Sometimes we get lucky, because we have boy dogs, and they lift their leg and the stream of pee goes right off the side of the boat. There was a particular morning during Potter’s puppyhood that we weren’t so lucky.

The bed in our boat is in the very back of the boat. I sleep on the inside right under two portholes, one by my head and one by my feet, and Todd sleeps on the outside. I had some stomach issues in the middle of the night, so I asked to change places with Todd so I wouldn’t have to repeatedly climb over him when I got up to use the bathroom. We went back to sleep, he was under the windows, I was on the outside away from the windows.

In the morning I woke up and was reading until he woke up. I watched Potter walk around the deck in the morning, and smiled at my little fuzzy brown bear puppy as he loped around and sniffed the salt air. He made his way over to the window directly over Todd’s sleeping head. Potter sniffed at the porthole, which was open, and then proceeded to lift his hind leg. He aimed a stream of urine directly into the window.

“Potter! POTTER!! NOOOOOO!” I howled as I bolted up from my side of the bed. I launched myself over a still sleeping Todd. I cupped my hands and diverted the stream of urine away from Todd’s face. He woke as I screamed.

“What’s happening?” he asked, groggily.

“Stay down,” I grimaced at the warmth of puppy pee collecting in my hands. I managed to wedge the window closed with my elbow as I kept my hands in place. The pee landed on the blankets, and not on my love’s face.

“Oh my God, are you…?”

“Yes. I am deflecting dog piss with my hands.”

“For me?”

“Yes, just for you. I just saved you from an awful morning.”

“Wow. Now that’s true love.”

BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.