Dog-UGH

My poor dog. I really do love him. He is sweet, very gentle, very sensitive and in tune with the moods at our house. He lets my kids dress him up, lead him around the house, even up the stairs by his collar without any hint of complaint or any sign of aggression. He puts up with being fed late, being fed the same food every day twice a day. He rarely has accidents in the house and waits patiently to be taken out. Well, not really- he whines a lot when he needs to go out, but usually it is because I have forgotten to take him out. He thinks he is a lap dog even though he is too big and heavy and bony to really be a lap dog. If you are sitting on a flat surface for more than 2 minutes, chances are he will be next to you with his head on your lap or tucked behind your back. He has very expressive eyes and ears. He is a sweet dog. But, he is also neurotic.

I always say it is like he is a visitor to another planet and he is trying so hard to understand us- our habits, our language, our rules, but he just can't and it really eats him up. Whenever anyone comes to our house he barks and if we let the person in he makes a big fuss greeting them with jumping barking running around, sometimes jumping over the couch to get to his bed. Then he chews a plastic bone for the next 45 minutes. It is nervous chewing, very focused, very intense.

When my husband is gone (which is every other week for a week to 10 days half the year) he cannot handle it. He whines about everything. He whines to go out, he whines to be fed, he whines to be given the leftovers from your plate. He whines to be tucked in under a cover, he whines when he wants you to sit down so he can jump on your lap. He whines and whines and whines about EVERYthing.

He also cannot handle it when we leave him alone in the house. He is four and a half, and we pretty much leave him alone for some part of the day every day, and have done so almost every day of his life. Still, he cannot handle it. Especially when my husband is gone, but also when he is here, if we leave, we have to dog proof the house before we go. If we don't "dog proof" we come home to: bags of bulk cereal shaken all over the floor, diapers eaten, sticks of butter eaten and then buried in his bed, missing loaves of bread found under our bed, etc. He has been to the vet 4 times to get his stomach emptied by induced vomiting because he ate the contents of a dirty diaper that was not in a diaper pail. This usually happens when my husband is away and one of our parents has come to help us with the babies. They don't realize the importance of dog-proofing. We never throw away any diaper in any trash can that the dog can get to.

Today I woke up and vacuumed the house before packing lunches and getting all of us ready to go on a play date. Our house was the in-case-of-rain location so I wanted the dust off the floor where kids would be crawling. It took a long time and the vacuum always stirs up the dog and my girls. We got out the door late, and it did look like rain so I was glad that the house was pretty clean. We ended up staying a long time at the park and not coming to our house. I was so glad to be returning to a clean house for a change.

The first thing I noticed was a diaper on the dog bed. Not good. It was pretty much the shell of a diaper. I pictured a long day at the weekend animal hospital alone with my two girls and my pregnant belly waiting for him to be seen, then waiting for him to vomit up all the contents of the diaper before we could take him home. Then I noticed what looked like confetti and dew drops everywhere I looked. On the floor, on the couch, on the fireplace, on the front of the china cabinet. On the table, the chairs, the slats of wood on the back of the chairs. The window sills, the stairs, under the couch, under the table. EVERYWHERE. It was the contents of the diaper.

I cannot imagine how he got it in all the places he got it. He had to have been attacking the thing- shaking it in every direction, jumping around with it. Part of me wishes I had video surveillance of my house. I just couldn't believe it. THANK GOODNESS the play date did not end up at my house. My friends and their kids would have walked into my new house covered in cotton shavings and pee-saturated gel from the inside of one diaper. The gel is what makes the diapers so absorbent. It fills with whatever liquid it touches. In this case, urine. Since we never throw away diapers in any trashcan that is open to the dog- this one must have been from when my parents were here a few days ago. Lovely 3 day old urine all over every surface of the downstairs of my house.

The gel is sticky and not easy to vacuum. Clean up took about 45 minutes. Sometimes I could just shake that dog. A box of butter softening from the freezer was also missing. I had gotten it out in case we did have to have the play date at our house. I thought we could make cookies. I found it in the rocking chair in the nursery. Oh what a dog. When I was done cleaning and locating the missing box of butter, I found him in my room on my pillow with the guiltiest look on his face, trembling. I scolded him and he skulked into his own bed in the smallest ball he could form with his long bony body. Sad guilty dog eyes and ears down in supplication.

Five minutes later he was whining to go out.