Remember the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Well, you know how the clones screamed when they spotted a human? That’s exactly how I sound when I catch my new puppy, Sadie,squatting to relieve herself in an inappropriate place. And where-for the love of God-does all that poop come from, anyway? She really doesn’t eat that much!
Creo, my three year old dachshund, corgi, cairn terrier mix, has a huge repertoire of tricks. She even plays dead when you shoot her with a finger gun. So I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to train her to do the clone scream?
She’s down there all the time, walking around with Sadie. She has to know Sadie’s looking for a spot, don’t you think? Life would be so much easier if Creo could warn me in advance. Then, I could grab the puppy and run for the grass.
But, no. After Sadie’s done her business, Creo stares at me in disgust–like she can’t believe I’m letting Sadie do that in the house. I’m sure there’s an underlying “You never let me get away with that.”
Creo has done a great job with the puppy (other than the whole potty-training venture). They chase each other, growl and rough house, and every time I turn my back, they’re stealing each others’ food.
Toward the end of last week, Creo stopped playing with Sadie. Sadie would run up, panting, ready for some fun, and Creo would walk away. I was worried. But then my daughter pointed something out to me. See, we’ve done a bit of dog-sitting in the past. Well, when you dog-sit, the dogs go home after a few days. It occurred to me that Creo may be ready for Sadie to go home–for our household to get back to normal.
That bummed me out. I wanted Creo to understand that this is normal now and that things would be okay so I bought some of her favorite canned food and began feeding her first. By the time I put Sadie’s dish down, Creo’s half done.
Miraculously, she and Sadie started playing again. They haven’t stopped yet.
Now, if we could just make it to the grass a little more often.
Oh, crap. There she goes again. Sadie, wait. Sadie, nooooooo! Arghhhhhhhhh!
I still think potty training puppies is easier than potty training kids . . .
While I miss having had Jessie as a pup, I sure didn’t miss that phase! Hey, Barb is coming into town today..maybe we could stop by on Thursday to meet her?