I realize that this title could appear to refer to any number of things at this moment in time. What’s Bryce blogging about today? Could it be the Trump tapes? The wildfires in the west? The Corona crisis? What does he mean when he says “poop”?
I mean poop, folks. As in puppy poop. Which believe me, is a much more immediate problem in my life at the moment.
We thought we had Ferris down at this point. He would let us know when he needed to be let out. We’d take him out, he did his business, and we’d bring him in. At night, we’d take him out one last time, then take him out again once in the middle of the night, and we’d be good to go.
Reader, we were most definitely not “good to go.”
These days, Ferris likes to go to sleep about 8 o’clock each night. It’s a long, tiring slog, biting your family and generally demanding attention for every moment you’re awake. I can relate to his feeling. So he passes out somewhere underneath the table or a chair, oblivious to the world. Last night, Tomas woke him up and dragged him out at 10pm for a last chance at voiding the bowels. Ferris was Not a Fan of the idea. He refused to do anything, so Tomas took him inside to put him into his cage.
As near as we can figure, that was when Ferris decided sleeping was no longer an option. He’d had a nap, and it was time to play. Commence the barking and yapping! Tomas, as instructed, left him in his cage and went to bed. When Denisa got up at 2:30 for the nightly walking of the dog, she discovered a dog that had become encased in a coating of poop. (We think he probably pooped the cage in the middle of all his barking protest at 10pm.) So she took him out, cleaned him off in the bath, cleaned out his cage, and took him outside, where he proceeded to sit down and do nothing. “Poop? What poop? No need to poop, ma’am. It’s the middle of the night. What sort of an animal do you think I am?”
So she did what any right thinking woman would do: she brought Ferris back to his cage. But this was no longer a sleepy Ferris. This was a freshly bathed Ferris, ready for action (as long as it didn’t involve pooping outside). He began barking and protesting again, but Denisa was (naturally) exhausted, and went back to bed.
When Daniela got up at 5:45am to take Ferris out, she discovered (spoiler!) a dog that had become encased in a coating of poop. (Once again, most likely deposited during all his barking protests at 3am.) So she took him out, cleaned him off in the bath, cleaned out his cage, and took him outside, where he proceeded to sit down and do nothing. “Poop? What poop? No need to poop, ma’am. It’s the stupid o’clock in the morning. What sort of an animal do you think I am?”
This is, naturally, more than a little discouraging. The kids are back in school, work is back in full swing, and right when we need all hands ready for battle, the puppy’s stuck on the poop deck.
We have, of course, come up with a new strategy. Tonight, the plan is for Ferris to go to sleep in his cage at 8pm, and for us to leave him there until he wakes up and begins to whine. (Yes, we’re resorting to a baby monitor, the very same technique I marveled that my brother would resort to with his puppy, just a few short weeks ago.) If he wakes up because he has to poop, then (call me crazy) maybe he’ll actually poop when he’s taken outside right away, and then he’ll (theoretically) not be so ready for partying right afterward, because he won’t have taken a bath. (You wake me up at 3am and put me in the shower, and I’m going to be pretty wide awake when I try to go back to bed as well.) This continues to rest on the assumption that Ferris would prefer not to be encased in a coating of poop. I recognize he might have developed a taste for it at this point. If that’s the case . . . we’ll figure something else out.
Wish us luck. We will, most assuredly, need it.
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Try feeding him before a leashed walk down the neighborhood, with poop bag available for immediate use. The feeding ahead of time should focus his bowels moving to the present, during his walk, and avoid intermittent urges later and through the night.
Thanks so much for this advice. It was super helpful, and now that we’ve been walking him right before bed each night, we’ve been accident free. Such a difference!