The Mystery of the Urinating Canine

Every morning, my husband or I pick up the two newspapers from the front yard that get delivered to us. And every morning, one of them has been peed on.

Never the Wall Street Journal, only the Washington Post. The papers are always, fortunately, wrapped in those little plastic bags … but still, it is very annoying to have a bag with pee dripping off it to deal with every morning.

I have to guess the culprit is a dog. I’d hate to think it’s a human. I also have to surmise that it’s a neighborhood dog, since it happens so regularly. But chances are that it’s a dog that’s being walked on a leash, since the vast majority of dogs seen in our neighborhood are leashed. So that means there is a human who is either facilitating or not addressing this crime. Could it be a passive aggressive neighbor who really hates our guts?

And to be honest, I am guessing the substance is pee. We haven’t had it tested. But it sure looks like pee. Other than dog urine, it could be deer pee. They do roam our ‘hood, in fact just this morning a big deer was taking a nice nap in my backyard. But we never bother them, give them free range of our yard, so why do they hate me so much they want to piss on my news?

I am going to have to get all Nancy Drew up in here, and launch a sting operation to nab the guilty party. Maybe night-vision goggles or motion-activated security cameras. I’ll scour the local army-navy surplus store and see what kind of camouflage I can get for hiding in the bushes, and I’ll let you all know what I find out.

I’ll get you, you journalism hating canine. It’s just a matter of time.