The world is our toilet

We live in a condo and we don't have a backyard. So yes we are those assholes that let our dogs poo/pee in front of your house. We can generally keep the peeing to our street, but Ender really needs to get things loosened up before he can go number two. Naturally, I’ve been “told” a few times to keep it moving while Ender has been in mid-poo. And yes, some of those times they were entitled to say something since we were on someone’s front yard and therefore on private property. So I’ve really been trying to have the dogs poo on the street since it is so-called public property. But then in the end we can’t win either way because then we get yelled at for being on somebody else’s street and then get told that we need to have the dogs poo in front of our own house. Those times, I fight to urge the say “Hey, I pay taxes and just like I have a right to park my car in this spot, my dog has a right to poo here!”

Anyway, call out to my fellow city dwellers – where is the most optimal place to let your dog poo?

Life Lessons

One very important life lesson I had to learn early on was - always carry 3 poo bags.

When we first got Ender, I started off only carrying 2 poo bags with me. We didn't have one of those poo bag carriers because that would've just been another thing to knock my teeth out when Ender was busy losing his shit, so I would just stuff two poo bags in my pocket. One morning, Ender poo'd twice before we reached the halfway point on our walk.

And then, he poo'd a third time.

Luckily I had a bag of pupperoni treats with me so I had to empty the bag out and use that to scoop up as much poo as I could.

So now I always make sure I have at least three poo bags and though we no longer feed our dogs pupperoni, they will always have my gratitude for helping me out on a jam.

Poop Mania

Poop mania has once again hit our household. I haven't figured out what it is yet, but we are holding off treats until this wave has passed.

Here is Barksdale's Report Card:
"Barksdale pooped in the car about 3 minutes after we left your house, FYI."

Ender on his walk this morning, pooped out a whole baby carrot.

Ack.

sniff sniff

Some people wake up to the smell of coffee. I wake up to the smell of poo. Admittedly I totally brought this onto myself. I've been trying to figure out what to stuff Barksdale's Kong with and I don't think I'm having any success. Last time the bf went out of town, I stuffed her Kong with all kinds of goodness including peanut butter, natural balance lamb roll pieces, banana, sweet potato, and uh...steak. That set off some epic pooing that has scarred the bf for life. I attributed the epic to chicken apple sausage and vowed that she would never taste chicken again.

Thinking I had learned my lesson, I whittled my Kong stuffing list down to three ingredients:

1. Peanut Butter (I wasn't going to take any chances so I've been using Trader Joe's no sugar no salt peanut butter)
2. Her kibble
3. Chunk of Natural Balance Lamb Roll

But she still poo'd!

So now I'm not sure if it's too much peanut butter (I've limited this to half a spoonful) or the Lamb (sizable chunk but nothing too crazy). But if it's both, what am I going to stuff her Kong with? I need answers internet! Answers!

House Training

House training is what I refer to as the worst part of owning a pet. Many of you may have lucked out by adopting a dog that is slightly older or have already been house trained. We, on the other hand, adopted puppies and therefore doomed ourselves to be knee deep in pee and poo for the better half of a year.

The advantages of having a big dog is having a dog with a big bladder. Ender, who was forty pounds at four months, had a bladder the size of Texas. The down side of having a dog with a bladder the size of Texas is that when there's an accident, it's like Niagara Falls.

With Ender, we had absolutely no plan. We picked up a few pee pads, laid them near the doors and just kind of left it at that. The pee pads turned out to be good for only one thing - cleaning up after he's peed in the corner somewhere.

After reading up on this, I believe we were using a combination of the "constant supervision" and "crate training" method to help house train him. We had him on a strict pee schedule and crated him when we weren't supervising him. We absolutely lucked out with Ender as he only had a handful of accidents during training, even when we left him crated all day when we went to work.

Barksdale, on the other hand, literally leaves me dumbfounded. When people say having a puppy is "hard work", THIS is the part they are referring too. She literally had to pee every three hours. And she would pee inside her crate, ALL the time. Hence the dumbfoundedness. And this is everyday for about two months. Although she is better at holding it, we still have to wake up at 6:30am to take her out to potty. And I have lost count of accidents she's had inside the house.

Going through house training, there were times when I lost the will to live because I didn't want to clean up more pee and poo, there were times when I considered giving her back to the shelter, there were times when I considered just letting her sit in her own pee because I didn't want to get out of bed, and there were times that I cursed the heavens above for being responsible for this beast. My advice? Just accept what may come your way because when they gotta go, they just gotta go.

Next up - When your dog is peeing just to be an A-hole.