Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

Training a puppy-cow…

Author: thenicknick

Okay.  No one said raising a puppy-cow would be easy.  In fact, most people warned us against it.

Everyone: What would possess you to want a dog that big?

me: I’ve always wanted a dog I can look in the eye, saddle up, and ride around the neighborhood.

or:

me: It’s S’s dream dog.  And if we’re going to get a dog, might as well give him his dream.

My dream dog wasn’t about a particular breed.  I wanted a family dog, a dog that would make me feel safe, a dog that would be affectionate, a gentle giant.  It has worked out rather well.  And for the training, there have only been a few accidents.  And they are mostly our fault.

Our first mistake was leaving Keenan in charge of Bishop.  I later found Keenan watching television in his room while Bishop christened the living room.  In Bishop’s defense, all of his accidents have been on the wrong side of the back door.  And the second accident that caused my lousy morning, because I need one more thing to do in the morning, was when a breakdown in communication occurred between me and Rachel.  I thought she was watching him so I could post.  She thought her hair was more important.

The end result was that the moment I  noticed Bishop had grown suspiciously silent, it was already too late.  He was trying to sneak away from a softball sized pile of poo in the living room, which is a true challenge since his paws are so large I can hear him walk and because I could have spotted a poo that size from a football field away.  So, it was the stick his nose in it, bring him outside, set him in the grass bit.

Then he tried to help me clean up.  Only, as you may have guessed, he was something of a hindrance.  In utter frustration, I brought him to our bedroom and rather unceremoniously dumped him on his father, who couldn’t grasp why I was in such a huff at 6am.  (He should have seen me at 5:55am.)  Without Bishop trying to sniff the poo and/or walk through his pile, the clean up went amazingly fast.  And we’re still on the first can of carpet cleaner.

The key to potty training our puppy-cow seems to be that we need to take him out the minute he wakes, every time he wakes.  We need to take him out after every time he eats or drinks or thinks about eating or drinking.  If he walks to the back door, near the back or even glances in the general direction of the back door…we take him out.  Oh, and by ‘we’ I mostly mean me, or someone directed by me.

And now it has occurred to me that this training a puppy-cow isn’t just an act for Bishop, he’s training us, too.  We are learning his little tells.  We can read the signs.

S: (one morning at o’dark thirty) Did he pee?

me: (mumbled as I crawled back into bed) I think so.  He kind of squatted.

S: Was his tail in a question mark or a lightening bolt?

me: (tired and annoyed) What?

S: The question mark is when he pees.  The lightening bolt is the other.

me: (thinking)  Hard to tell in the dark.  Does it really matter?

And apparently it did.  And I still don’t know why.  And he finally let it go so I could go back to sleep.

The bottom line is that we’re good for Bishop.  We’re going to shape our puppy-cow into a gentle giant.  He’ll be a model for all Danes to come.  And he’s shaping us, too.  S is getting up earlier…than he’d like.  The kids are taking on more responsibilities…than they’d like, but not more than they can handle.  (They’re not a fan of poop patrol, the daily cleansing of the yard.)  And me?  Last night, Bishop made my dream come true.

We were talking to Spring and Jay.  Now that they live just down the road, they can pop in once in a while.  We were in the living room, joking around as Jay told some story about the past.  And suddenly I felt it.  Bishop had his head on my feet.

me: S!  Look!  (And I pointed.)

S: (smiling) Just what you wanted, baby.

me: (tearing up a little)  I know.

See, Snickers, the neighborhood pooch, was notorious for using my feet as a head rest or to keep his hind end from touching the wet grass.  And the night before Bishop came home, when he was doing that mutually beneficial act (my feet were cold), I had hoped aloud that our baby would do that.  Dreams do come true.  My life proves it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 19th, 2009 at 6:54 am and is filed under Bishop tales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.