10:04 – Yesterday and today I’ve been incorporating comments from reviewers and posting the “final” versions of the manuscript chapters. We’re through the initial narrative chapters and the first two lab sessions, other than incorporating any late-arriving comments.
I don’t know what we’re going to do about Colin. When he first came home with us, I thought he was going to be easy to house-train. He had accidents, of course, but he seemed to realize that he was expected to urinate and defecate outside. Then he noticed that Barbara and I used the indoor bathrooms, and apparently decided that what was good enough for us was good enough for him. He decided that our hall bathroom was for him. Fortunately, it has a ceramic tile floor.
He no longer urinates indoors, and most of the time he defecates outdoors. But only most. He goes through spells when he reverts to using the hall bathroom. He might go two or three weeks without doing anything indoors, and then defecate in the hall bathroom several times over the next few days. He’s in one of those spells now. It’s particularly aggravating because it almost always happens minutes after we come back in from a walk. Before we come in, I lead him over to the natural area where he’s been trained to go. He’ll stand there just looking down the street. I tell him we’re going to go in the house and if he needs to do something he’d better do it now. Eventually, he trots up to the front door and waits to come in. And then, often within five or ten minutes, he shits on the bathroom floor.
I wouldn’t mind so much if he’d just shit on the floor. That’s easy enough to clean up and sterilize. But the really disgusting part is that he usually eats it. That’s because we made the mistake very early of pointing at a pile on the floor and yelling at him. He’s obviously decided that it’s safer to hide the forensic evidence.
This morning, I took him for a walk just after Barbara left. Five minutes after we came back into the house, he shit on the floor. At least that time he didn’t eat it. As I told Barbara, it may be beyond the capabilities of even a Border Collie to understand if I yell at him for shitting on the floor and then praise him for not eating it, so I just cleaned it up without saying anything to him. Then, about 9:15, I took him for another walk down to the corner. Before we came back in the house, I gave him a good opportunity to do anything he needed to do. Sure enough, five minutes after we came back in, he shit on the floor, but this time he ate it. And people wonder why so many Border Collie pups end up in rescue.