2006-09-08
K9
Your dog can't relate to you as a human but YOU can relate to your dog as a CANINE.
Hearken back to prehistoric times.
Call forth your survival instinct.
Assert your ultimate dominance so that your dog will have clear boundaries and a known set of rules in which to operate his dogly tasks.
I need a seminar.
Ever since my place got broken into, the dog has quit being house-broken. It's like she decided that she's the boss and she doesn't need to ask no stinkin' human for permission to go outside.
She doesn't need to come when she's called, sit when I tell her to, stop chasing the cat, bring me the ball, go to bed, or anything else that she did pretty consistently.
If the dog never brought me another ball in my life, that would be fine... if she also never peed on the floor again.
So as of last night, we are back to square one.
Crate training.
She's pissed, pun intended.
She's getting over it - I'm a good dog owner and I pop by the house every 3 hours to let her out and make sure she's not in agony but she's NOT happy about Sarah's Little Burst of Independence.
And the thing is, she should be thrilled. Everything I've read about dogs is that they want you to be the boss. They want to know who is in charge so they can laze in the shade or chase a tennis ball or sniff dead things, you know? They're not like cats, who have killings to accomplish and twice-daily patrols of their territory.
"Lie like a dog"
Duh.
Dogs lie around. They don't want to have to do the thinking.
Except, apparently, for mine. She feels SO strongly that I'm in need of guidance that she's actually angry with me for asserting myself as the (rightful) pack leader.
I think she's crack by tomorrow and we'll go back to the happier days that we were living at the beginning of summer, when there wasn't any tinkle in my bedroom and when I could let her out to do a doody and she's come right back.
The rain doesn't help. Not only has she decided she's the boss but in an almost record-setting summer of rain, she's realized that she's a pretty, pretty melty princess who will dissolve into nothing if she gets her delicate precious toesies wetsy in the mud-mud.
Doggo needs to get a grip. Rain's not going to make her melt but if she refuses her many reasonable opportunities for personal relief, choosing instead to pee in my bedroom, I will start melting and it won't into a sweet pile of pink sugar like any other princess. Oh no, I will melt down like Chernobyl and then, according to the canine theorists, things will be made that much worse and I'll go through this at every crisis where the dog senses any little bit of weakness or deep-seeded fear in me.
That is a death sentence for me, since I'm prone to dramatics and pretty regular cycles of disrepair.
Pee in my bedroom isn't going to help with my proclivity for a fit so.... I had to take action.
Square One, people.
Taking Control.
Being the Alpha.
Remembering what The Viking told me over and over when Rosie was about the size and shape of a dinner roll, "Take control."
Meditating on what my friend's husband, whom I call Kevin Costner, told me, "You'll have to be strong with that pup. Make her your dog."
Make her my dog, indeed.
I am making her my dog, dammit.
Once and for all.
If I get a call from the neighbors because they are upset at the noise, I will apologize and move on.
If I get a ticket for noise because she decides to scream bloody murder in her crate and the cops show up and think I am abusing her but find her tucked away in a lovely crate with a bone and lots of bedding and the air on.... I'll pay it without complaint.
I am ready to apologize but hold my training ground.
I am ready to make that bitch my dog.
I am ready to take back, with authority, my bedroom floor.
I am ready to relate to my DOG as a CANINE.
arizonasarah at 2:58 p.m.