Eish!

Some time back I found myself in the precarious position of baby sitting a dog.

More specifically, it was cross between a a Boerbul, a Labrador and a Vice-Grip. The result was a small breed of snorting water buffalo.She was also only 6 months old and already as high as my waist. Which is high, even for me.

Being a puppy, the dog liked to do puppy things: jump around, bark in a tinny-whiney sort of way and eat socks. Being a dog, the puppy liked to do dog things: swallow socks, partially digest them and then excrete. Being the infernal spawn of a diuretic water-buffalo that it is, the defecation tally reached 3-0 a day with extra points for swathing pools of urine (some directly in front of the sliding door and one on my foot).

The dog got banished from the house within hours where it could defecate on the lawn to its heart’s content.  It could also whine at 2am and bang on the metal security gate to be let indoors because it needed to micturate.

• Let out dog to defecate before bedtime.
• Wait in vain
• Figure she has already defecated somewhere indoors
• Get woken up at 1am by dog scratching on front door.
• Let dog out to defecate after bedtime.
• Dangle sock teasingly to speed up the process
• Wait in vain while dog sniffs around garden looking for squirrels
• Dog comes back in and then looks longingly at front door again.
• Get woken up at 2am by familiar sound.
• Let dog out to wander around garden in hope that it will defecate.
• Leave dog outside and go back to bed.
• Get woken up at 3am by dog banging on metal security gate
• Let dog back inside in good faith.
• Good faith broken within ten minutes.
• Either let dog in and repeat from a few steps back or wedge piece of cardboard into gate to stop noise.
• Let dog back in.
• Step in turd by fireplace
• Dog gets banished.
• ad infinitum