I almost gave away my dog...

It's true.  I bought a puffy little ball of fluff at the beginning of the Christmas season in 2013.  I adore that dumb little dog and she is WONDERFUL with the kids.  I should give her some credit.  She is a tiny thing--was only three pounds when we bought her--and she has put up with a remarkable amount of love from the kids in a variety of dog-unfriendly forms.  Look, wasn't she cute!?

Now that she's grown, she is patient, fun, bouncy, and she does tricks.  She plays fetch with me and the kids.  She lets my two year old carry her toys all around the house, and plays grab and tug with her, which both of them love.  She stays downstairs all the time.  She stays off the furniture.  She only chews up and plays with her toys.  Honestly, she is a really, really good dog.  She is also always so very eager to please.  But we struggled to really get her housebroken.  They say, in her defense, that it's harder with small dogs.

I do not handle pee and poop in random places in my house very well.

However, over time, Foxy improved drastically.  I finally had her almost entirely housebroken around July.  Our move to a new house was a little confusing and stressful, but we survived the confusion and Foxy was really doing quite well.

December was a crazy time.  That is probably true everywhere, but my sister had her wedding here at our home in mid-December, and things were even crazier here as a result of that.  Around the end of November/early December, I began to find puddles of pee near the back door.

!*##!&!&#!!

I was not happy.  I talked to a professional dog trainer.  She told me the dog was trying to get outside (hence, pee by the door) but that she needed to be entirely retrained, as though she was a puppy.  I would need to get a leash and keep her with me at all times so that if she decided to go, I could (calmly, yeah right) take her outside.  I was not happy to hear this.  It was only two weeks until my sister's wedding and I did not have time to deal with holidays, wedding preparation and all my kids, as well as train my dog to do something she should have figured out by now.  I mean, seriously.

The trainer mentioned that Pomeranians who are as cute as Foxy, and good with kids, are hard to find and she had at least one person, possibly two, who would be delighted to adopt her from me if it proved to be too much.

 I gave this some very serious thought.  I was beginning to wonder if perhaps this particular dog was just too hard for me to handle.  I truly almost gave her away.

Whitney reminded me of how great she is with the kids, of how much they love her, of how sweet she is, and how she stays off the non-leather furniture, never chews and stays downstairs.  He reminded me that every dog has its foibles and if we have to keep cleaning up pee by the door from time to time, it's probably not the worst thing.

See how cute she is??

I decided to keep her on the leash for two weeks.  BLARG.  I did it, while Whit worked, while the kids ran amok, while I decorated for Christmas, I kept that furry little fluffball with me every second. She did wonderfully.  She gave me a lot of very pointed looks that said, "Mom, what exactly are we doing here?  Why am I on this leash inside?"

I ignored them.

I was honestly a little baffled by her perfection for almost a week.  I was about to bag the whole thing when somehow we ended up with a little puddle by the back door.  I wracked my brain.  When had we been over there?  When had she been off the leash?  How had she peed there?? I could not remember.  I did not know.  But OH was I mad!  I yelled and yelled at her.  I might have rubbed her face in the pee and put her outside. (Which, by the way, is one of the dumbest things I have ever done.  Not only does it completely not help, but then I had to BATHE THE DOG.  IDIOTIC.)  Poor pee faced Foxy looked very sad.  I felt angry and sad and (guilty and) frustrated and I seriously considered, again, calling the lady and having someone else adopt her.  Even on the leash, even with me, she managed to pee on the floor.  GOOD GRIEF.

But I kept her.  I kept on trying.  That's what we do, right?  When things are hard, we say, just one more hour.  Then just one more day.

The next day, she peed in the bathroom.  And there was no doubt in my mind we had been no where near the bathroom.  I had not let her off the leash.  I had been 100% diligent.  I had been watching.  I had taken her outside.  I was truly perplexed.  It was that afternoon I noticed that Emmy was playing by the back door, where there is (incidentally) a toy bench the girls play on, and I saw her pull her pull-up aside under her dress and pee on the floor by the door.  She left a puddle, but her pull-up was dry.  Not unlike the other puddles I had been finding.

So, yeah.

It wasn't Foxy.  It was never my poor, loyal, true little maligned furball.  It was my devious, lazy little three year old, who explained when I asked why she never admitted to making the pee puddles that "she didn't want me to rub her face in it and put her outside."

Uh huh.  So that was my bad.

I don't have a moral here.  Honestly, I could come up with one, I am sure.  I just don't want to.  This is just one of those things that is hilarious, and sad and pathetic all at once.

Luckily, it's already become one of those stories.  "Oh yeah, remember that time we thought Foxy was peeing all over, but actually it was EMMY?"  Geez luiz.  Freaking kids.

I will say this: I am glad I didn't give away the dog.  HA!