Don't ask me, I don't know what I'm doing!

When I do homechecks for people adopting puppies from HART (the rescue group I volunteer with), they often ask me for tips and tricks on housebreaking their puppy. I tell them the best advice I can give is to not ask me for tips and tricks on housebreaking their puppy. Seriously. It took us two and a half years to housebreak Noelle and I'm STILL not convinced she's 100% housebroken. Either that or she's just spiteful and I choose to think the best of people...and dogs.

Now, I recognize it's unfair to compare housebreaking Noelle to potty training Kaitlyn, but it feels a little bit like the same routine. Yeay! Lots of forward progress! Lookit that! Poop in the potty! Lookit that! A whole day with no accidents! Next day, five accidents! I had to go buy underwear in a bulk pack of 100 so that we can make sure we have enough "unnerwear" to cover us through two days. An exaggeration, sure, but man, this potty training thing is kicking our collective butts! And you can say to her "Kaitlyn, the pee pee goes in the _____" and she will very nicely finish with "the POTTY!" Same with the poo poo. She wants to do well, she wants to wear the unnerwear, but she most DEFINITELY does not want to stop what she's doing to go potty. Unless what she's doing is boring (like waiting for mommy to finish her conversation or going to bed earlier than 10 pm) in which case she has to go RIGHT NOW and as OFTEN as possible!

On a medical front, TIC had a massive ear infection in the earlier part of last week. What I thought was her eardrum bursting was her eardrum pushing out her tube with a big fat "ptoooie!" A follow up with the ENT yesterday recovered the tube (I have it stashed securely between two dixie cups...yup, we're high tech) and cleared fun gunk out of TIC's ear. And I mean FUN! And brought tidings of comfort and joy. Prognosis is we're looking at another set of tubes, within the not too distant future. I don't know what the issue is (genetics) but I'm seriously over this nonsense! And I'm guessing TIC is too, but I could just be projecting.

TIC also learned a very important lesson this week: If you hold your hand out without giving anything in return, you will continue to have a very empty hand. We encountered a fat toad on our walk one evening. I goaded her into trying to pick it up. Her version of picking it up was to walk towards it with her palm outstretched as if hoping the toad would decide to jump nicely into the palm of her hand! The toad did not comply, but I don't think TIC was too disappointed. In truth, I'm not entirely convinced that it wasn't just a way for her to appease me and that she really DIDN'T want to pick the toad up. I get. I don't want warts either! ;-)

Until next time...don't ask me! I don't know what I'm doing. At all.