The Missing

Despite my pronouncement about how perfect Leeloo is obviously that's not entirely true. Raimi is not a mystery to figure out. Halo is pretty direct in her intent much of the time. Leeloo is a conundrum.

Leeloo and her siblings were raised on cedar chips, not newspaper which is what I use. Cedar chips mean that when they 'go' it soaks in right away, there is little odor and they don't learn to pee away from their beds. Leeloo doesn't care about her own 'deposits', she can sit in her own pee and crap all day and not mind one bit.

So Leeloo came to me not paper trained and no inclination to go away from her bed. I spent several weeks paper training her but she continued to pee whenever I was out regardless of where she was kept, crate or expen. She house trained pretty fast but knew when I was gone she didn't get into trouble for peeing in the dog room or crate.

We deduced that another part of the problem was an allergy to her food which effectively caused a food induced diabetes. She would drink unusually high amounts of water which made holding her pee during the day doubly hard.

So paper training her helped a bit in that I could direct the pee, changing her food reduced the amount of pee but holding it while I'm out ... still working on it. Crating her just results in a crate of pee plus a puppy covered in it. Not something I want to return to after work. I tried to put her in an expen in the kitchen and that resulted in barking all day (because she was away from the other dogs) plus copious amounts of shit and a puddle of pee.

Today, I had to be out for longer than usual but decided to live with the consequences anyway so back into the kitchen she went.

When I got home there was no pee, no shit and no Leeloo. The kitchen expen was empty and almost exactly as I'd left it 9 hours earlier. I was not greeted in the hall by a naughty puppy. Heart in throat I went to check on the other dogs.

Times three.

Looking out at me from behind the baby gate across the dog room door. There was Leeloo, thrilled as always to see me. Raimi and Halo bounced around with joy as well. I was never so happy to see a naughty puppy.

She had spent the first part of day getting out of the expen, going down the hallway to the dog room and jumping over the baby gate into the room. The latter part of the day was spent ripping a foam dog bed into a zillion little bits.

Did she pee or poop? No chance. Too busy with the dog bed one presumes.

I think it's a one off thing, it could also be that I freaked out at her yesterday for the pee and poop thing in the kitchen (something 'they' tell you doesn't help train dogs but it felt good to vent) and she's terrified to either stay in the kitchen or 'go' anywhere in the house. Could be neither ... could be both.

Only time will tell ...