“One fine day, with a woof and a purr / a baby was born and it caused a little stir…”

For some, the stir alluded to in the theme song to Nickelodeon’s CatDog ceased in 2005 with the airing of the series’ 64th and final episode, “Meat, Dog’s Friends.” Others might point to the 2001 TV movie CatDog: The Great Parent Mystery, which purported to demystify the origins of the strange dual-creature known as CatDog. But for those of us who take these issues seriously, neither the series’ conclusion nor the pitiful excuse for an origin story did much assuage the abiding horror that Cat and Dog’s fusion awoke within us.

Sure, we learned a little bit about the characters’ early lives growing up in a cave with their adoptive parents—a sasquatch and a frog—but we were given few clues as to how a monstrosity like CatDog might have come to be in the first place. And only that creation story can unlock the larger anatomical questions that CatDog’s very existence poses. Obviously these questions could extend to every organ and system that sustains them, but one in particular stands out—how does CatDog purge their shared body of waste products?

Cat Wants a New Bottom | CatDog | NickRewindwww.youtube.com

This is not a petty concern like “litter box or backyard.” CatDog is fused at the midriff, with two front halves. They have no hind legs, no tails, and seemingly no way to excrete or evacuate or otherwise relieve the pressure that arises from everything they eat and drink. Based on the amount of junk food and trash that Dog consumes throughout the series, the need for such a release valve would be immense, and yet it seems to be nonexistent. No amount of wacky hijinks or odd couple bickering could ever distract from this maddening fundamental issue: How does CatDog pee and poop?!

After decades of research and consideration, I have narrowed it down to three possibilities—dual two-way digestive tracts (they expel waste from their mouths), a single one-way digestive tract (Dog eats, and Cat is essentially a very talkative assh*le), or a completely novel and unique system of waste disposal. Obviously this last possibility leaves many options available, but considering the anomaly that is CatDog, it seems the most likely. Do they sweat out their waste, or expel it by aerosolizing it and breathing it out? Anything is possible, but the thing that makes the most sense is that the CatDog we know is only half of the picture.

While there has been speculation that CatDog were the result of some kind of gene splicing experiment, a rudimentary understanding of genetics rules that out. No, their fusion is far stranger than a blend of two genetic recipes could explain. Rather, it’s necessary to imagine a scenario—and a being—that warps the very fabric of spacetime. Like Jeff Goldlum in The Fly, a teleportation experiment gone awry could explain a monstrous chimera like CatDog, but only if there were a corresponding creature composed of their remaining parts.

In other words, the CatDog we know is only half of the equation, which might more accurately be called Cad, while the other half would be called Tog. In this scenario, Tog would have a butt at both ends and if the eldritch powers formed these two freaks are still active, a connection between Cad and Tog might be ongoing. In other words, whatever Cad eats, Tog excretes—and Cad eats vile things with no sense of the consequences that Tog must mutely endure.

Once you’ve considered this version of the world of CatDog, no other version makes sense, and you must contend with the reality that somewhere out there—blindly wandering and spewing transmitted waste—there is a being that completes the CatDog we know: A cat’s and a dog’s butt fused together.