Of Puppies and Poop

Gizmo misses his other puppy pals... not when he can be right near us of course but at night when he is in his "room" and when its not that warm outside and its time for him to do his biz he looks for his doggy littermates. Sometimes I struggle (especially at night) when he is in his kennel and he whines... I know it will only reinforce the whining if I go in there and see what is wrong, but man is it hard not to...

The cats don't really want anything to do with him... Jade at least just ignores him, but tigger is not impressed that we've expanded our family to include the puppy. I've told him he'd better get used to it, because the puppy is here to stay! I hope that in the next few weeks that they will all become friends... I'd love to come into the room to see them all sleeping in a giant pile or grooming each other. Poor Gizmo just wants to play with his kitty buddies...

We got him a whole bunch of toys and things to chew on... and he has a really big crate to sleep in at night - it holds his bed and a pee pad and toys and still has room left over. He really likes the purple stuffed dog we got him, his stuffed pelican and his chicken flavoured nyla-bone... but even having all of his favorite toys with him at night, sometimes he whines and cries and barks for hours. One night it was so much that I couldn't sleep - we ended up closing the living room door and I could still hear him but at least it was muffled enough so we could sleep. He did settle down after 3 in the morning... so I managed to get at least some sleep. But what we saw the next morning made me gag and then understand a little more why he had been so upset. He had done a lot of puppy pooping and gotten it squished in his paws and hindquarters. He had managed to fling some of it outside the kennel and somehow he moved his pet bed (shaped like a couch) right into the worst of it... all of his blankets and toys were covered in puppy poo too...

I took the puppy outside to see if he would do anything else, but he only peed... I didn't think it would have been possible for him to have anything in him after what he left in the kennel. I took him inside and my hubby had cleaned up most of the mess but said that the kennel wouldn't be ready for him until the bottom tray portion was clean too... we were lucky that we bought a second dog bed and a lot of toys he told me.

I gave Gizmo a bath... much easier than bathing a cat by the way!!! It took a lot of time to get the crusted Dooo out of his paws and hindquarters but after about 30 minutes I had gotten everything out and I finished his bath and wrapped him in a towel like a baby... I snuggled him and he kissed my nose. I though to myself that it was going to take a long time to towel him dry... A light bulb lit over my head... I decided to try using my hair dryer on its low-warm setting and see how it went... if he didn't like it all I would have lost was a minute or two but if he didn't mind the dryer it would save me a LOT of time.

Turns out, Gizmo didn't mind the hair dryer at all... and I was able to give him a really good brushing afterwards. He was really fluffy, soft and smelled sooo good!

That night we took him out for a walk - he peed but nothing else. We tried hanging out in our backyard after the walk to see if he would do it there insead... he did not go at all. It was getting late and we decided that since he had a pee pad in his kennel that we would have to put him in and chance that he would make the same mess as he had the night before.

We said goodnight to the puppy and made sure he had toys and that his spare bed and blankets were comfy and we all went to bed. I laid awake waiting for the whining and crying... wanting and hoping that it wouldn't last as long that night. Silence. I rolled over and poked my hubby in the arm so he would take out his ear plugs (apparently I snore or something LOL) and I asked him in my quietest voice if he was hearing anything coming from the livingroom... he listened really hard for a moment and then in an awed voice he said quietly... 'he's not crying!'. We both fell asleep and woke up to the alarm clock the next morning - Gizmo had been quiet all night!!

He had been quiet... but he had managed to make a very quiet mess of the kennel... he had dragged the pee pad (complete with puppy logs) and his bed into the middle of the kennel. Luckily he didn't have any of it on him and we only had to wash out the kennel and put his second bed and some more of his toys into the wash. We were really glad that we picked up lots of doggie blankets from the dollar store the night before... so we have lots of spares!!

That night when we got home we decided that there needed to be some sort of partial barrier between his bed and his bathroom and I remembered that the kennel came with a divider that folded in half... my hubby took the task of figuring out how to make it sturdy enough so that it would work to keep the bed part from being able to be dragged over to the bathroom side of the kennel. He finally figured out that if it was in a triangle shape that he could secure it very easily!

We copied the walk and yard time from the night before (no poop to be had from the chowzer again though) and hoped for the best.

Gizmo whined and cried until about midnight (we go to bed between 10 and 11 every night) and then was quiet until about 4 (but only cried for about 15 minutes). When we got up the next morning, we could easily see that our plan had worked!!! The pee pad was messed on and had been moved a bit, but the puppy couldn't move the bed part.

Friday afternoon I had the afternoon off - the last of my vacation time for this year - and I spent a lot of time outside with Gizmo... I hadn't seen him poop, my hubby had though. I wanted to know what his stance was and any pre-poop mannerisims so that if I saw them inside I could stop it and get him outside quickly. But he didn't do anything more than pee... and even that was hard to tell because he is so fluffy.

My hubby called and booked a grooming appointment for the next afternoon and we took him in. Gizmo loves car rides!! Sometimes on our walks he'll stop by the car and look up at us as if to say 'Car ride??'

While he was being groomed we took the opportunity to do a little shopping - we went to the Dollar Giant nearby and went up and down the aisles... we found a lot of puppy supplies too! I can never resist a good bargain and I always end up spoiling our pets!

We went back to the groomers and they told us how good he was for his grooming and they had taken a lot of pictures for their store album. Then they brought him out... He was so cute! He had a little bandana tied at his neck and his face was trimmed short and he could actually see everything that was around him! We took him into the petstore (attached to the grooming parlor) and he picked out a toy and we grabed a blue halter - he was having tangle problems with the colar and leash. When we got home I decided it would be a good time to have some outside time with him and maybe... fingers crossed... he would do his biz for me.

It took over an hour with him wandering around and then I saw it... he hunched down - much easier to see without all that fluff - and pooped! I got really excited and praised him lavishly and gave him a treat. He still makes some messes in the house, and sometimes drags his blanket or pee pad around, but for the most part he goes where he's supposed to... now if only he'd learn that he can come in from outside a lot sooner if he goes quickly... but I suppose that will happen in time too!