Hope Springs Eternal

After many months of trying to housebreak Truffle, I gave up. I concluded that I would never be able to overcome the first eight years of his life, which he spent in a cage with testosterone coursing through his system, working as a stud in a puppy mill. The pooping was pretty easy to manage, since it tended to occur either just before or soon after meals, and I could plop him on his pee pad, wait for the event, and then clean up. Urine was another matter, since his peeing had little to do with the fullness of his bladder, but rather with his urge to place his mark on every vertical item in the house, from coat rack to table legs. (We checked him for UTIs, but everything was clear.)

Fortunately—and this saved my sanity during those early months—if he was on a bed, a sofa, or in his crate at night, Truffle controlled himself. How he acquired this habit is one of the many Truffle mysteries that will remain unsolved. But if he was loose in the house for a single minute, he would raise his leg and make a puddle. True, it was usually a tiny puddle, but you know how dogs are—once they have peed on a spot, it acquires a diuretic charm forever.

How to deal with this? Here, the very factor that caused the problem, his maleness, came to my aid.  I could cover his penis with a belly band, a wide fabric belt with extra padding on the belly side and velcro fastenings across the dog’s back. I bought eighteen of these, and put one on Truffle whenever he was loose in the house. To prevent his trotting around with urine-soaked fabric against his skin, I changed the bands frequently. This meant a lot of dog-related laundry, but I could deal with it. I was reasonably content with this arrangement, suppressing my feelings of failure about having an incontinent dog, and reminding myself that the perfect is the enemy of the good. After all, what right did I have to expect perfection from poor little mistreated Truffle?

And that was when a small—or possibly a medium—miracle took place. One day I went into the mudroom and saw, there in the center of the pee pad, a poop! How had it gotten there? The only possibility was that Truffle himself, suddenly feeling the urge, had put it there. Surely, though, it was only a coincidence? But the next day, there it was again, a poop on the pee pad. I can only compare my surprise, joy, and gratitude to the feelings I had as a child, on the morning of the Feast of the Epiphany, upon finding the doll that the Magi had left for me.

From then on, poop-wise, it’s been smooth sailing, with only an occasional contretemps. So I’ve been wondering, if Truffle trained himself to poop on the pee pad, might he train himself to pee on it as well? I’ve decided to give him the opportunity. But this time, no pressure. No timelines. What will be will be. I have made one change in my own behavior: because of his extreme unreliability, I used to carry him to the pee pad to prevent him from peeing on the way. Instead, now I have him walk with me to the mud room and step onto the pee pad on his own, which is what he does when he poops. And when, after spinning forty-seven times, he finally stops and pees, I sing hosannas and give him a piece of kibble.

So that’s been how I’ve been handling, or rather not handling, things for the past week or so. Has it worked? I have no idea. He mostly pees on command when I lead him to the pad, but he also pees in his belly band, though maybe a little less frequently. But who’s counting? Not I! I’m working on being passive, letting go of expectations, relaxing, and following the via negativa. I’ll let you know how it goes.