Farm Fresh Blog

What is the first rule of dog training?

Everyone together now!

"TRUST YOUR DOG!"

If you've ever run Patrol Dogs or Search & Rescue Dogs, this lesson should be pounded into your head. Trust the damn dog. I cannot tell you how many times I've been tossed off my high horse humbled by an honest dog. You would think I would learn by now, but here I sit, in confession, admitting my sin to you yet again.

Before we go there, we have to touch base in the Land Of Sexist Rants again. Forgive me guys. What is it about men that makes them think their jobs are more important than ours? Why does a man think that it's okay to go to work, come home, go to bed, and have uninterrupted sleep because his spouse will take care of any and all responsibilities? And, why does a woman do it? Why do we allow him to come home and crawl in bed when we don't allow ourselves this luxury?

When I come home from work I must:

1) Potty break and juggle 7 dogs
2) Entertain the puppy who has been in kennel for at least four hours. Puppy must be tired and fed again and have another potty break before I am allowed to go to bed. This takes at least an hour.
3) Go to bed. Wake at least once during night to give puppy another potty break.

When Husband comes home, he:

1) Goes to bed

Since the addition of Mesa the Baby Border Collie I have been forcing Other Half to at least give her a potty break before he comes to bed so that I can have an addditional hour or two of sleep before I face the day.  My reasoning is this: He darned sure plans to use this pup on his cattle, and thus he should share the responsibility of raising said creature.

Ladies, am I right?

This is how it played out this morning:

Other Half comes home at 5:30 am. Mesa, as always, is delighted to see him. He takes wriggling, happy girl outside. A few minutes later, he returns to plop her in bed with me where she plays until he comes to bed. He then crawls in bed and plays with puppy. (expecting me to return pup to kennel when he's done) His reasoning: "You have to pee anyway. Just lock her up when you come back to bed." This sounds reasonable so I fall for it.

The lights go back out. Minutes later puppy is crying. He ignores her. I ignore her. After all, she has had a potty break. She has played. I should have at least an hour and a half before the sun comes up and I plan to SLEEP. If I get up now, there is no going back to bed. So I listen to her cries become screams. Her bowl begins bouncing around the kennel like a prisoner's tin cup banging the bars. I squeeze my eyes shut and continue to ignore her. Her antics become a full-blown fit.

And here's where I made my mistake:

Dillon comes to the edge of the bed and announces: "Mesa has to go to the potty."

I ignore him. He is her best bud and probably wants to start his day early too.

He paws my face. "Mesa has a CODE 1 Potty Emergency."

I yell at him to go lie down. He sighs and leaves, only to return and announce, "She isn't kidding. She's gonna have a mud blow-out if you don't let her out."

I roll over and ignore him.

And guess what?

Mesa has a mud blow-out. Simple as that. She shit all over her kennel floor, all over her toys, all in her little dog bed, and it was all over her feet. I peek in the kennel to find a very unhappy little girl sitting in the middle of a poopy dog bed, glaring at me.

Dillon's eyebrow said it all. "I told you she had to go to the bathroom."

And that's when I put it together. Rather than stand outside in the cold, waiting for a puppy to poop, Other Half had allowed her to pee and then run back inside. He ignored the basic rule of Training Your Dragon: The dragon ALWAYS has to poop! The Mesa Dragon has to poop twice before she is really done. He has been told this, but at 5:30 am after a long night at work, it's just easier to ignore that and count on the spouse to deal with it.

The lamp comes on and the fireworks go off. I point out that if he had taken the time to give her a proper bathroom break he would be snoring at this moment instead of helping me drag a dog crate outside, bathing a puppy, and washing her dog bed and toys.

I apologize to Dillon for not trusting his judgement. I apologize to Mesa for not believing her. I then rush Mesa, Lily, and Dillon outside and return for the kennel. Growl at Other Half who is still lying in bed, blinking like a mole. Open front door to take poopy trash bag outside. Mesa is standing at front door happy to see me. She no longer has to poop. (Ya think?!) Lily is disgusted by Mesa's actions and bites her in the face. Puppy does a backflip and falls off the porch, landing in a large puddle of muddy water. I smack Lily in the side with a trash bag full of shit. She is grossly offended by this. Mesa happily climbs out of puddle, runs around the deck, bounces up the steps, and appears at my feet, poopy, muddy, but happy.

I cannot help but smile at her good humor. No harm. No foul. She doesn't hold a grudge. Perhaps we can all learn something from a puppy.

I think about that as I hose out the kennel, her dog bed, and her toys. We take a long walk in the yard while Other Half plunks her dog bed in the washing machine. I have a 'wife moment' as I hear the washing machine filling up with water and shout through the screen door at Other Half, "You know you have to put something else in there to balance that load, right?" He grunts that he knew that. My mind does a quick inventory of the dirty clothes. Nothing in the hamper is something that can be washed with a crappy dog bed, so I ask him, "What did you use to balance the load."

No response.

Standing on the front porch I ask again through the screen door. Crickets.

The only possible right answer to this question was "dog towels" but since he didn't respond I knew he was still running around the house trying to find something to wash with the crappy dog bed because he had forgotten he couldn't just plunk a shitty dog bed in the washing machine, hit the 'wash' button, and go back to bed.

I take a lesson from Mesa who is happily bouncing around in the mud with a stick. I let it go. Walk around yard watching happy puppy while the wildly popular song from the movie Frozen rolls through my head. Other Half shouts through the window that Mesa's bath water is ready.

We bathe puppy in sink. She discovers the bag of puppy chow beside the sink and buries her head in the bag to pack her little cheeks like a chipmunk. Whatever. It keeps her still. Pick your battles. After her bath I make Other Half pose for a photo with a puppy burrito.

I inform him that I will blog about this. He nods. He is tired and no longer wants to hear how this is all his fault because he short-cutted her potty break. I will go on record as saying the fault is shared because if I had believed Dillon when he announced the emergency, I too, would have been snoring in bed instead of starting the day by walking in the mud humming the PG version of "Let It Go" while a grinning puppy chews on sticks.