Today was the most successful day of potty training. Somehow, after trial and error, Indy just seemed to get it. He woke me up at six-thirty, as usual, with a little whine and a paw to the side of his crate. I rolled out of bed and took him out, praising him—as I always do—before taking him back in, and putting him back to bed. For the rest of the day, I stuck to him like toilet paper to the bottom of a shoe.
The minute I noticed him heading toward the back door, I asked him if he had to go potty, and I ran to the door, opened it, and followed him out. When he peed—as he inevitably would, as he seems to pee almost non-stop while awake—I praised him as if it was his birthday. By the middle of the day I noticed that he was sitting at the back door, waiting for me to approach. By nightfall, he was actually walking away from the door to see where I was.
Eureka!
Could this have been the proverbial light bulb above his furry little head signaling that he finally had the right idea? I don’t think I’ll know for sure until several days more of this back and forth exchange, but for the first time in weeks, I have real hope.
As impossible as it may seem, chasing the puppy around did not take up my entire day. On the contrary, I spent a large portion of the day…the parts when the puppy was sleeping…entertaining the children (our nephews and our youngest.) I had promised to take them swimming at my sister’s house after lunch today.
After they had their fill (or rather I had mine) of swimming, we drove back home for dinner. My husband had agreed to make jambalaya for dinner while we were gone. Just to hedge our bets, the kids and I made a quick McDonald’s run for a snack before heading home. And it was a good thing we did. Mike was swamped at work, and never got around to cooking.
Out to dinner we go!
It had been a while since I’d eaten in a restaurant. I can’t say I’ve missed it as much as I thought I would. I actually like a good home cooked meal these days.
After dinner we came home to walk the yard and check on the fruit production. Our apples and pears are coming along nicely, the peaches aren’t. The blueberries didn’t do so hot this year, but the blackberries have gone crazy. We’ve been getting about a pint of fresh blackberries a day! The kids have been picking them every morning. The nephews commented that they’d never seen thornless blackberries before, to which my husband replied, “They don’t come that way in nature. These are laboratory engineered blackberries.”
He just sucks the romance out of things sometimes. Can’t we just think they’re thornless because that’s the nicer way to be? Next thing you know he’s going to tell me that my roses are genetically modified! That’s what happens when you’re married to an amateur botanist!
Until the next time…I’ll be making a laboratory engineered blackberry pie!