Ruby Tuesday (pictured below) is 10 weeks old, 10 pounds and able bring an entire farm to a halt. Oh I know that one day she will be working side by side with me, effortlessly moving our small herd of cows from one pasture to another but, for now, life appears to be circulating around a small princess whose greatest weapon is where she places her poop.
) Peeing outside on the entire 6 ½ acres available to her? No problem! She’s got that down. On some level she knows she needs to “do number two” out there too and obliges occasionally. But that would be relinquishing the solid comfort of depositing a small cluster of her finest on the soft farmhouse carpet. I naively had assumed that she would not poop where she sleeps or eats and that is true but no matter how many places in the house we feed her and watch her sleep she finds another where she has done neither of these activities. After walking up and down in the rain she would pee, prance and play then upon getting back in, look around her surreptitiously and run upstairs to poop on the landing, or in the back closet. I fought back by closing off rooms (luckily a house that is 105 years old has a lot of doors). So this this morning I rose ready to take back my life – I was galvanized! When she awoke at 4:30 I was up and out with her faster than the speed of Calvin (our Great Dane) who subsequently wandered down to investigate. Undeterred by the lack of little turd production – I quickly dressed and had coffee, shut the door to the upstairs to foil my small genius. I thought optimistically that I would have breakfast, feed the dogs to encourage general digestive activity and go out for a half hour play in the pasture (at which time I was sure the desired emission would occur) and then return, dry my hair for once, look like I was in control, wash the dishes, fold the laundry and head out to fix the hoop house like a grown up farmer while my dogs slept peacefully by the fire. Maybe I would return and make home made dog treats like Martha Stewart.
Well after 40 minutes of muddy rainy cold pasture play (and no poop) I gamely headed in thinking I would regroup and move on. The dogs obligingly lay down in an idyllic fashion by the fire – maybe today would be the first day of….and then I saw them…two femininely placed little bundles, cunningly disguised by the dining room carpet pattern. I marched into the kitchen, grabbed two bags, a paper towel and the special $40 dollar “dog accident” cleaner, knocked a wine glass off the counter (an indicator of how I cope at the end of the puppy days) which smashed into splinters across the kitchen floor. I closed off the kitchen area, ran to the dining room, cleaned up the offending piles, found a third. I fiercely closed off the dining room doors, stopping to water the plants in there so they wouldn’t be forgotten, paused to remove my underwear from Ruby’s mouth, cleaned the entire kitchen floor to ensure there was no glass and glanced at the clock which informed me the morning was gone. Ruby 3 Farm 0. But now she’s looking at me with those eyes and bestowing me with those sweet puppy kisses and my heart melts as usual. Oh well – tomorrow is another day, your royal canine highness…
