#2 PUPPY: EXTRA! EXTRA!
EXTRA! EXTRA!
It’s an extra “Raise Our Puppy With Us” blogpost. It’s just that, well, Scooter has been a material reality for eleven weeks and with us for eight days, and yesterday, for the first time, every occasion of his digestive castoff got cast off outside! On grass, rather than on oriental rugs or wooden floors.
Here’s the history:
At the ready, crate, yes, but from the moment he arrived in our home:
PeePads, blue plastic-backed white absorbent squares of failed hope. Scooter ate, slurped water, romped and played and ran, frequently collapsed for sleep and restoration, and frequently squatted . . . anywhere but on well-placed peepads.
“Hurry!” One of us (we who find it necessary to watch this little creatures every move, we who carry him outside FREQUENTLY, urging a new habit of “where”); one of us would cry, “Oh-oh, He’s . . ,”
One of us would rush to move him from his selected squat spot to the PeePad or grab said pad and attempt to push it under the earth-aimed end of the puppy so he will learn, “This is the place to pee or poop.”
2. “Woolite PETSTAIN & ODOR REMOVER+Oxygen”
Not that we needed oxygen. No, no. Perhaps the carpet needs +Oxygen but we are following the wisdom of Cesar Millan. We are creating “perfect obedience from day one through rules, boundaries, and calm-assertive leadership.” You’ve never seen an adult human so calmly and assertively whisk up an ever-playing apricot-colored ball of fur sporting four wiggling feet, trying to place its dripping self on a blue-backed absorbent pad manufactured and sold as an easy “indoor” means of potty training your puppy.
Ha!
We did find a use for those peepads. We’ve cut them into small squares. Between the every hour-and-a-half or two trips to a grassy commons where we urge “hurry-hurry,” we place them over puddles of pee on our carpets. We press hard and watch how perfectly these pad do absorb moisture. We spray pet-stain solution on the spot. We wait five minutes (during which time Scooter romps and plays—especially does he like to pull around peepads). We blot the spot as directed, with a clean cloth. We’ve done this countless times.
By day three. we committed ourselves to convincing Scooter that the proper place of relief is outside—rain or shine—outside. So, surely, you can appreciate signs of progress. Surely, you can celebrate our noticing that the last two inside puddles pooled near the outside door. He had made it close to the point of departure. Now, surely you can applaud his decision yesterday to march himself TO that door and whine.
“OH! He’s ASKING to go out!”
Surely you can appreciate that on Day Eight of his residence, neither wooden floors or carpets have been soiled. We are being energetically calm in our celebration.
