Tales of Addiction: Fido's Story

Ultimately, the goal of quality journalism is to promote the public interest. In that spirit, Papersoup is proud to unveil the first in a series of reports detailing personal battles with addiction. Each installment is devoted to the life of one recovering addict, and is told in the subject's own words. As a result, certain content may be too graphic for our more sensitive readers. If you are one of these readers, please scroll down to the Soap on a Rope article concerning male prison rape. We believe this will be more to your liking. Thank you.


My name is Fido, and I am a recovering shit eater.

It's embarrassing for me to admit this, because I have no sob-story, no real hardship to excuse what I once was. I was a suburban house pet. I had a good life; a loving family. I was comfortable, pampered. I was loved. Shit eating wasn't supposed to happen to a dog like me. It was something that happened in the inner city to laid-off junk yard dogs and three-legged pitbulls; dogs that never tasted anything better than house brand dog food, and whose coats were anything but shiny and manageable. I thought shit eating wouldn't - no, couldn't - happen to me. But I was wrong.

It started out innocently, and as I would find out later during my detox, rather typically. I was hanging out with that Shar Pei down the street. Oh, just as an aside, beware of the Chinese breeds; crafty as all hell. Damn wrinkle faces aren't good for nothing but lying and cheating. Plus I heard their women only have five nipples. Anyway, as I was saying, I was hanging out with this Shar Pei who I thought was my friend. We were bored after a long day of wrestling and chasing, so he asked me if I wanted to eat some grass. Now, from the day I was whelped I had been taught that grass was a gateway consumable, so I was wary about trying it. The Shar Pei must have realized my reservations, because he started running on and on about how good it would make my stomach feel, and how it wasn't addictive. I had heard this story a thousand times before, and I had also seen many a dog munch lawn to settle their stomach only to barf up a nice pile of grass clippings on their master's favorite rug twenty minutes later. However, there was something about this dog. He was very convincing. So I tried the grass, and you know what? It did make my stomach feel pretty good, and it kind of put me in this calm peaceful place that I really liked. Ah hell, let's not mince words. I was high as shit, my collie!

Three weeks later I was eating 6 mouthfuls of grass a day. I got to eating so much that I needed something more potent to get even a little baked, so I started making the trip across the neighborhood to the Sullivan's lawn to get a taste of that sweet sweet Kentucky Blue. No more drought resistant Zoysa schwag for me! Kentucky Blue was beautiful, each blade thick, succulent and bursting with that chlorophyll I was chasing. It got me baked all right, but it didn't come cheap. I had to give the Sullivan's Labrador three Snausages and a Nylabone every time I wanted to take a quick graze. Luckily my family still thought I was a good dog, so they kept feeding me treats, not realizing I was hording them to pay for my grass habit. But I wasn't a good dog. I was being a bad dog. A bad, bad dog!

Things only accelerated from there. Pretty soon, I was into harder drugs. I went from grass to snorting the dust at the bottom of Kibbles bags. I started to get a touch of mange on my tail, but I played it off like it was a flea allergy. My owners were none the wiser. That may seem surprising, but they still thought I was their obedient dog. In their minds, there was no way I could be experimenting with mind expanding dog food.

I don't really remember the first time I ate shit. I just remember waking up in this flop dog house in a bad part of town. This labradoodle was sucking my dick. I didn't know who she was, but she had some dried blood under her nose and some corn kernels on her lips. The kernels were a sure sign of a shit eater. Just like humans, some things pass through a dog's stomach without really breaking down. To a shit eater, cheap corn and pea based dog foods are a God send, because those are two vegetables you can enjoy a second time, if you catch my drift. I pushed her off with disgust. I may have been a user, but I certainly wasn't a shit eater. Or so I thought…..I went over to a mirror in the corner to make sure I looked all right before I dragged myself back home, and I noticed I had some kernels on my muzzle too.

I ran home as fast as I could, disgusted with what I had just done. Yet, there was no way to forget that amazing taste that just seemed to linger in my mouth the whole day. That's the thing with shit eating. You're always chasing that first aftertaste, trying to get it again. But it never is quite the same. It's never quite as good, but you always remember that first time…always.

I realized I had hit rock bottom when a week later I was out on the streets sniffing butt for spare change, and my fur was matted with dried corn kernels. I had pretty much abandoned all obligations to my family to feed my addiction. In those days, I could even be caught sauntering up to the mailman with a wagging tail and a smile on my face, just hoping for a little hand out or a pat on the head. The mail man! The uniformed douchebag who disturbs the sanctity of my home territory and would even be free to mince about inside my yard if I didn't stand guard at the front door and bark my head off everytime I saw him! That fact still shames me today. It brings up a very zen philosophical question, too. If a dog stops hating the mail man, is he really still a dog? At the time, I don't think I was a dog. I was just an addict, chasing the next gurgitated high.

Luckily for me, I had many good friends, both canine and human. I could no longer hide my problems from them, and they were desperate to get the old me, the real me, back in their lives. Long story short, after an intense intervention and two months at Betty Ford for Dogs, I was on my way to recovery. It sounds like a cliché, but this trip back from the brink can only be taken one day at a time. I won't lie either, their isn't a day that goes by when I don't lust for the nutty, earthy taste of a freshly laid doo, coiled neatly on some crotchety old man's well maintained front lawn. Luckily, with the love of my friends and family, and a pack of Ho Hos everyday, I'm on my way to recovery. I've got my family back, my life back, and my swagger back.

I'll never abandon them again. Not for all the turds in the world.