Poe in Armed and Ready Position.When do a dog's assets continue to outweigh their pissets? I fear The Dog's are coming dangerously close to an end, drowned by an uncontrollable flood of pee. This seems to be yet another consequence of our vacation--our dog has come back from her respite at my parents' with a heightened neuroses.
As I have explained previously, our dog does not have the best understanding of what it means to be house-trained, but it had become better, at least in terms of the peeing. She seemed to have been developing more control and being able to hold it for longer periods of time, but since coming back from my parents', her self-esteem (which was nebulous to begin with), appears to have been shaken. I don't know if she thinks we sent her away as a punishment and so now she is even more submissive in an effort to please us or what, but it's manifesting as some kind of urinating defensiveness.
Take this morning, for instance. I catch her down in the basement committing one of her few acts of disobedience, sneaking cat contraband. Anytime she gets the opportunity, she sneaks down to the cat dishes and inhales whatever food is there, and I mean inhale. It is truly a feat of nature the speed at which she commits this act. One minute she is standing there with two full bowls of cat food in front of her, you blink, and the bowls are completely licked clean, with Poe barely uttering a doggy belch. So, it was I caught her, bowls empty, and I yell. Now, yes, the yelling may not be adding to her self-confidence, but she knows she's done something verboten, and she is trying to flee the scene the minute she hears my feet on the steps. I tell her to go to her room, which, normally, she does, but this time...
I go upstairs, expecting her to be in her bed. She's not there, so I start searching the house for her, calling her. No dog. Okayee… Fortunately, we don't have a large house, so I cover the downstairs in a short period of time. I then head upstairs and see a darker than usual blob underneath the bed. Now, I'm in a tricky situation. I have to call her out from under the bed in an upbeat enough tone that she's not going to wet the carpet, having already relieved herself on the basement stairs when I first reprimanded her. I call. Nothing. Oh crap. This means I'm going to have to somehow drag her out from under the bed, again as positively as possible, in an effort to avoid more doggy waste contribution to our already stained carpet. I manage to coax her out enough to where she has cleared enough of the bottom of the bed to flip onto her back, readying herself in the piss position, and...we have pee...I grab her tail (because I have read this somewhere in all the doggy manuals I have loaned from the library) and pull it up over the offending orifice. This is supposed to make them stop peeing/pooping, as I recall. Another myth debunked. Well, not entirely, it did seem to stem the flow while I dragged her by the collar on her back, while still holding her tail modestly over her doggy bits, up to the point of the stairs. This was not all in one movement. I did make one pit stop on the other side of the bed, grabbing some of Vaughn's "burp rags," (cloth diapers that we still haven't gotten around to getting rid of), and placed one over her still flowing stream of pee. All this time, she has this helpless look on her face, still maintaining her position of submission, belly up, paws resting on her chest, while I appear as if I'm trying to diaper her, which, at this point, seems like a very good idea indeed.
I manage to reassure her enough to get her on all fours, and she heads down the stairs, presumably, finally, to her room. But what's this? That's not the way to her room. She has evidently decided at this point to take a piss tour of the house, like a little Doggy Appleseed, leaving a trail of urine throughout the house, later to grow into an everlasting impenetrable stink. First stop--the kitchen, a puddle or two there and then a beeline for the living room. I'm hot on her heels--by this time, caution thrown to the wind, screaming at her, calling her all manner of dog obscenities, and watching helplessly, as she now heads for Vaughn's room and his, up to this point, virgin carpet. New strategy. I stand at the doorway, and once again, in my sweetest tone, try to persuade her to come to me piss-free. Fortunately, she makes it all the way to the doorjamb before she plants another puddle. By this time, I have lost it, screeching like a harpy, I nearly strangle the dog as I drag/choke her into her room.
And this is how I spent my day while Vaughn was in kindergarten.
Reflecting on this now, I'm sure I have done nothing to build up Poe's self-esteem, and she will probably need a few years of doggy therapy to recover. Maybe we can get a group discount for her and Vaughn, as I'm sure he'll need it, too, if he doesn't already.
As I have explained previously, our dog does not have the best understanding of what it means to be house-trained, but it had become better, at least in terms of the peeing. She seemed to have been developing more control and being able to hold it for longer periods of time, but since coming back from my parents', her self-esteem (which was nebulous to begin with), appears to have been shaken. I don't know if she thinks we sent her away as a punishment and so now she is even more submissive in an effort to please us or what, but it's manifesting as some kind of urinating defensiveness.
Take this morning, for instance. I catch her down in the basement committing one of her few acts of disobedience, sneaking cat contraband. Anytime she gets the opportunity, she sneaks down to the cat dishes and inhales whatever food is there, and I mean inhale. It is truly a feat of nature the speed at which she commits this act. One minute she is standing there with two full bowls of cat food in front of her, you blink, and the bowls are completely licked clean, with Poe barely uttering a doggy belch. So, it was I caught her, bowls empty, and I yell. Now, yes, the yelling may not be adding to her self-confidence, but she knows she's done something verboten, and she is trying to flee the scene the minute she hears my feet on the steps. I tell her to go to her room, which, normally, she does, but this time...
I go upstairs, expecting her to be in her bed. She's not there, so I start searching the house for her, calling her. No dog. Okayee… Fortunately, we don't have a large house, so I cover the downstairs in a short period of time. I then head upstairs and see a darker than usual blob underneath the bed. Now, I'm in a tricky situation. I have to call her out from under the bed in an upbeat enough tone that she's not going to wet the carpet, having already relieved herself on the basement stairs when I first reprimanded her. I call. Nothing. Oh crap. This means I'm going to have to somehow drag her out from under the bed, again as positively as possible, in an effort to avoid more doggy waste contribution to our already stained carpet. I manage to coax her out enough to where she has cleared enough of the bottom of the bed to flip onto her back, readying herself in the piss position, and...we have pee...I grab her tail (because I have read this somewhere in all the doggy manuals I have loaned from the library) and pull it up over the offending orifice. This is supposed to make them stop peeing/pooping, as I recall. Another myth debunked. Well, not entirely, it did seem to stem the flow while I dragged her by the collar on her back, while still holding her tail modestly over her doggy bits, up to the point of the stairs. This was not all in one movement. I did make one pit stop on the other side of the bed, grabbing some of Vaughn's "burp rags," (cloth diapers that we still haven't gotten around to getting rid of), and placed one over her still flowing stream of pee. All this time, she has this helpless look on her face, still maintaining her position of submission, belly up, paws resting on her chest, while I appear as if I'm trying to diaper her, which, at this point, seems like a very good idea indeed.
I manage to reassure her enough to get her on all fours, and she heads down the stairs, presumably, finally, to her room. But what's this? That's not the way to her room. She has evidently decided at this point to take a piss tour of the house, like a little Doggy Appleseed, leaving a trail of urine throughout the house, later to grow into an everlasting impenetrable stink. First stop--the kitchen, a puddle or two there and then a beeline for the living room. I'm hot on her heels--by this time, caution thrown to the wind, screaming at her, calling her all manner of dog obscenities, and watching helplessly, as she now heads for Vaughn's room and his, up to this point, virgin carpet. New strategy. I stand at the doorway, and once again, in my sweetest tone, try to persuade her to come to me piss-free. Fortunately, she makes it all the way to the doorjamb before she plants another puddle. By this time, I have lost it, screeching like a harpy, I nearly strangle the dog as I drag/choke her into her room.
And this is how I spent my day while Vaughn was in kindergarten.
Reflecting on this now, I'm sure I have done nothing to build up Poe's self-esteem, and she will probably need a few years of doggy therapy to recover. Maybe we can get a group discount for her and Vaughn, as I'm sure he'll need it, too, if he doesn't already.
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