Stupid Animal Tricks

As you may know, we've been having a tough time house training Alice.  Last week, things reached a head.  Wednesday morning the dogs woke me up at 5:00 am.  Abbey needed to go out.  Probably because she spent all day eating raw hides, and she doesn't even like raw hides.  She just ate them because Alice was chewing on them and she certainly wasn't going to be left out.  (Our house is covered in raw hides so Alice doesn't chew on every other thing in the house.)  So Abbey has to poop and it was 5:00 am.  I tried to ignore her but by 5:30 she really wanted out.  Really.  So I got up let her out.  Luckily for us we have an outside door in our bedroom so I don't have to stumble far.  5 minutes later she's back in the room and we're both trying to get back to sleep when Alice starts whining.  And whining.  And whining.  Oh, sweet Jesus...and I'm out of bed again.  Get dressed, get Alice and we walk outside.  She pees.  She poops.  She's a good girl.  Back in the house.  As I'm taking off my shoes, Alice trots into the bathroom and poops on the floor.  Motherf(*&*(&  We were juuuuuust outsiiiiiiiiide. WTF.  I mean WTF!!  So I took her into the family room, threw her in the crate and fired off a text to John.  (He was in France so I couldn't even call him to share in my misery.)

It had been 6 weeks.  6 WEEKS and we'd made NO headway.  Clearly she was broken.

I managed to fall asleep for another hour then woke up to get the kids ready for school.  Took her out a couple more times after she was fed than sat down at the table to have coffee.  Alice walked over and peed on the floor next to me.  Oh. Oh, no.  No, she did NOT just do that.  Not possible.

And another text to John:

Dog is BROKEN.

And I wrote a beautifully worded email to the rescue organization explaining the problems we were having, asking for some input from the foster parent and finishing up by stating that this may not be a good fit.  It was a work of art; especially considering that I had been up since 5:00 am and was piiiiiiissed off.  Calm, cool, collected.  That's me.  

Few days went by; no word from the rescue org.  No incidents in the house.  John came home from France with a bottle of wine and cheese from Duty Free.  Life is looking good.  

Few more days pass by and I was talking with my friend, Tina, and she said, "well, maybe she just needed some time to adjust."  Plausible.  Sure. Totally plausible.  But we had had 6 weeks of problems and then suddenly she straightened up in one day?  Really?  Sure, she may have finally "adjusted" but I think the bitch can read.