Hi Jim--
I'm glad you have Carl's response before mine because this isn't working for me at all. Perhaps it will be helpful or interesting if I try to say why not...
First, it's such a hard subject to write about effectively. That bond with a dog is so intense (I'm more cats, but, you know, same...), but it's mostly non-verbal. And maybe, like Tolstoyesque happy families, we all love our pets the same. So it's really hard to bring the non-verbal creature to individual life in, like, words, without devolving into cliche and sentimentality. Robinson Jeffers gets close, maybe, in "The House Dog's Grave."
As I read this, almost anything here could be said of almost any dog, certainly almost any shelter-rescue. The specific ancestry of Tigger is interesting, but it's just a guess, right?, and doesn't really go anywhere. In a revision, I would wish to know MUCH more about the only thing I find genuinely arresting here: the BBs in the face.
Second, I'm not saying one can't write a poem about dogshit, but the emphasis on turds here doesn't do Tigger or the poem any favors. It's gross, awkwardly funny not cannily funny, and (again) doesn't individualize the dog (they all stink and drop logs...). Fescue/rescue is a clever rhyme ( I thought so when I saw it in another poem around here, too), but I remember picking up your big shits is not a tender tribute.
Third, there are awkward syntactical moments here, like assumed and subject-less has that make the poem feel unfinished.
I feel like a cad saying this. Nothing here means I don't empathize with the experience of loving and losing an animal companion. I certainly do. If this poem is about a recent loss, I wish you all the best in coming to terms with it
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