Confessions of a First Time Foster

Paris has been coming out with us with just a dangling leash. She doesn’t want to run, so it’s safe enough, but OTOH she hasn’t been coming well when we call. So I think that privilege needs to be revoked. ::sigh:: Three dogs is a lot for two handlers! (Paris is paper-trained and doesn’t need to come out with us, but she wants to and I’m happy to encourage her to cross-train.)

I do not like housetraining a dog with a UTI. Yes, the second urinalysis (which the vet ran only after a bit of an argument) came back with white blood cells, so we’re putting Angel on antibiotics. (We still owe the vet another sample after Angel’s out of heat.) Sadly, Angel’s cloth diaper doesn’t protect as well as the disposable ones did. That we now have to leash her to a belt or crate her (or at least gate her into the kitchen) became evident after a series of spots appeared on the freshly cleaned carpet within an hour of her being outside. (arrrggghh!) Angel’s diaper was damp — I can only hope that she’s the sole perpetrator! At least now we’ll know if she’s innocent, since we’ll know exactly where she’s been.

I don’t think I ever mentioned that the Mystery of the Lake involves a serial striker. We’ve cleaned up I think four lakes carefully placed at the entrance to Angel’s crate. Luckily that’s in the kitchen. I know I wondered whether it was Cognac trying to “hide” Angel’s den or Paris declaring herself Angel’s landlady. We got a new clue when I actually looked at the living room:

I can’t imagine why Cognac would be feeling protective of his and Paris’s crates, but I can well imagine why my sweetie-pie would want to post “Private Property” signs. And of course once I started looking, more spots were evident. So we got a company in here to clean the carpets today, including spraying the whole thing with a deodorizer. I was very pleased they could get here with so little notice, because it was impossible to even think of housetraining Angel with the carpet in such shape. Which reminds me, Lynn told me today that the longer we wait on starting official housebreaking, the harder it will be. Darn. So I guess we start now.

Anyway, as the tech was finishing up (at around 1pm), he told me that the carpet would take up to 12 hours to dry. I asked about the dogs walking on the carpet, and he said it was no problem. Then he added that we shouldn’t let them lie on the carpet. Oh.

At the time Paris and Cognac were at the groomers. We found out that we could book them two rooms for the night at the boarding place we use, and decided in one of those instant mutual decisions that the prospect of three unhappy dogs penned in the kitchen for the rest of the day was unendurable. So after Paris & Cognac got home from the groomers, we took them over to their vacation place. Angel of course couldn’t go — I wasn’t going to consider asking the boarding place to take a dog in full-blown season. Nevertheless, keeping just one dog off the living room carpet has been delightfully easy.

And they would have been three very unhappy dogs, btw. It’s not bad enough that all three of them vociferously dislike being confined. No, Angel has finally decided to let Cognac have at her. I took the dogs into the kitchen last night so I could take Angel’s diaper off and give them a chance. (Paris of course came with.) It turns out that while Cognac can get his dingus a bit out, something isn’t working right and he can’t hook on. Poor boy! Poor little girl! Even poor Paris, who was feeling extremely bored. But Cognac kept trying. And trying. I answered the phone, “Triple X Motel. Rates by the hour.” (Credit to Papa for suggesting the “Rates by the hour.”)

Papa has been hand-feeding Angel. It keeps her from going nuts at being confined in the kitchen, and hopefully will lead to the two of them bonding, or at least Angel overcoming her general fear of men. I really like her, and hope that she ends up being the dog that Papa genuinely needs to have. Papa says he mostly feeds Angel by tossing bits of sausage (and now kibble!) on the floor, while humming Tom Lehrer’s Poisoning Pigeons in the Park to himself. ::sniff!:: She does take some of the bits from his hand now.The other big news is that Angel tore off her diaper this morning. She may have been trying to give Cognac better access. Those sticky tabs are no match for a bitch in heat! I called Lynn, who recommended cloth diapers cut for dogs that we can get at Petsmart. So I called Papa, and asked him to rush us one at lunchtime. He thought he got the right size, but it looks really big. At least it’s reinforced denim sealed with Velcro, so it will stay on Angel!

I’d claim to feel better about the ecological footprint of using cloth diapers instead of disposables, but these take a disposable pad like the liners that women use. And we’re going to have to wash them a lot. I’m calling Papa to ask him to buy another one a size smaller when he comes home from work.

P.S. The small one barely fits, like a bikini fits a teenage girl on the strut. We’ll need another one of the slightly-too-big size. [Added note from Papa: Mama called me at work to make this request. Actually, no, that wasn’t the request. The request was for two new diapers, which I balked at, citing the $17.00 price each. We compromised on one.]