October 2022

October 1, 2022

The Pee Pad Project

The idea germinated as I considered facing another winter of waking up in my second-floor condo during cold nights to Gracie needing to go outside to do her “business.” Those nights I would rip myself from the warm bed, drag myself over to the closet to put on warmer clothing, pull on shoes (or boots), don my coat/hat/gloves, gather my keys. flashlight, and ever-essential poop bags, leash up Gracie, and head into the blistery outdoors. Sometimes it would be 3 in the morning.

I’m 66 years old, and apparently in my “golden years,” living the good life???? I needed to re-think this. What could I do to make this easier for myself? I considered my options:

Giving up Gracie? NOT an option.
Pee pads in the kitchen? Tried and failed. Miserably.
Move to first floor living? Hmmmm… Certainly not feasible for this winter.

I wondered – could I create a potty area on my balcony?? Surely, I wasn’t the first non-first floor dog-owner to face this dilemma. So, I turned to our modern-day resource of infinite knowledge – the search engine. I’m certain computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented Google for solving just this very problem!! And I did some research.

With some highly ingenious digging (i.e., typing in keywords “dog” and “balcony” and “potty”), and a lot of reading less-than-satisfactory options (use a cat litter box) and discovering some noteworthy products along the way (e.g., The Purple Poop Bag™ – 200 bags for $199.99 *), I unearthed an article, “EASY BUILD DIY BALCONY DOG POTTY AREAS WITH REAL GRASS.” **

My pulse picked up a beat….

The Pee Pad Project to be continued…

* Get yours here: https://dogwastedepot.com/the-purple-poop-bag-100-recycled-post-consumer-resin-certified/

** https://balconyboss.com/how-to-and-diy/easy-build-diy-balcony-dog-potty-areas-with-real-grass/

Picture from the article….

October 3, 2022

The Pee Pad Project (continued)

I asked Tom (my builder-expert brother) to review the “EASY BUILD DIY BALCONY DOG POTTY AREA WITH REAL GRASS” plans while I was home last week. He did some figuring, then looked up at me and asked, “Want to build it today?” So off to the lumber yard we went to get supplies. Within a few short hours, we had the 4′ X 8′ frame built. That is, Tom had it built. I merely assisted. My building skills are pretty much limited to using a hammer and nails. (Even then, the quality leaves something to be desired.) The supporting structure consists of a frame (2 X 6 lumber) and a 4′ X 8′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood for the base.

How to transport everything 200 miles to my home in my Subaru Crosstrek and prevent the plywood from soaring off the roof onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike at 70 miles per hour? With ratchet straps, rope, ingenuity (Tom’s), slower driving (me) and much luck…

Here’s a pict of Tom and me next to my loaded car prior to my trip back….

The Pee Pad Project to be continued…

October 4, 2022

(Temporary departure from the Pee Pad Project tale)

It’s been raining for 4 straight days and being confined inside with a high-energy dog has been no picnic. Gracie has been growing increasingly restless each day. Last night, while we were out for our before-bedtime walk, as it poured rain on us, Gracie got the runs (that is, in the digestive sense). Soon I went to bed feeling much apprehension as I feared it might be a long night.

Gracie woke me up within several hours showing all the signs she needed to “go.” again. So, I turned on the light, removed my BiPAP mask, climbed out of bed, got dressed, laced my shoes, put on my heavy winter coat (the thermometer showed it was 41 degrees outside), grabbed poop bags/flashlight/keys, and took her out into the night. Gracie merely “sniffed around,” but NO GO for the next 15 minutes. I gave up and we came back inside, I dropped the poop bags/flashlight/keys, took off my heavy winter coat, unlaced my shoes, got undressed, climbed into bed, put on my BiPAP mask, turned out the light and drifted off to sleep.

Not even 10 minutes later, Gracie growled and barked to let me know she needed to go out. So, once again, I turned on the light (after swearing), went through the whole process again and took Gracie out into the rain. This time, thankfully, success, and, after settling back inside, I finally fell into a deep sleep. (Spoil alert on the pee pad project saga: Gracie has refused to use her new potty pad particularly for poos of loose consistency.)

ONLY TO BE WOKEN UP AGAIN AT THREE AM. And like earlier, we went through a whole false-alarm first time out, followed by a successful poo on the second try. Afterwards, as I began to fall asleep, Gracie wanted to play. When I refused to play, she crawled under my bed and began to chew the underside of the mattress. I pulled her out and put her in her crate. For the next 15 minutes she growled and barked until I finally let her out. I played with her awhile, then rubbed her belly for 10 minutes. She finally calmed down and I was able to drift off to sleep as I wondered what my life was like before I got Gracie.

All was silent until 6AM when the whole cycle repeated itself AGAIN.

On my way in from the drenching rain after a successful poo the second time out, I glanced at the weather forecast for the upcoming day. Forecast: 100% chance of rain. AGAIN. I think it was at this point, in my sleep-deprived state, I realized I couldn’t handle one more full day inside with a STIR-CRAZY dog having a tendency toward loose bowels.

I’ve decided: my little high-energy greasy noodle with dubious digestion will start DOGGIE DAY CARE TODAY!

October 5, 2022

Doggie Day Care is great!! More about that later.

The Pee Pad Project (continued)

Gracie and I made it home from central PA intact, dodging any disaster of an airborne board on the highway. My next challenge was to move the plywood from my car roof, up a flight of stairs, and to my balcony in the rear of my house. This was not a one-person job. Thankfully, Michael was willing to give me a hand after I explained to him the board was NOT heavy, just unwieldy. This statement, admittedly, was 50% true (the unwieldy part) but I suppose the “NOT heavy” part was a stretch. We soon found out, as we maneuvered the piece up the stairway, the COMBINATION of the board’s weight (about 60 pounds) and its size made it grueling work. (I’m sure Michael was regretting his offer to help as we swore and sweated from the load.)

After successfully getting the board to the balcony, I thought the rest of the project would easily fall into place. I just needed to get the rest of the items at Home Depot and assemble them! Easy-peasy! But JUST LIKE EVERY TIME I THINK I HAVE A HOME PROJECT UNDER CONTROL, the inevitable LAWS OF MURPHY manage to sneak in. Here are some fundamental axioms I failed to consider:

Murphy’s First Law of DIY (Do-It-Yourself): Any project will require AT LEAST three journeys to the hardware store.
Murphy’s Second Law of DIY: To estimate the total cost of a project, summarize the following:

Cost of all individual supplies required. Multiply the sum by two.
Fuel costs for transport of materials (include minimum of three trips to the hardware store – see Murphy’s First Law of DIY)
Cost of tools which your design plans had indicated are NOT required
Cost of tools that you buy on impulse while picking up required project materials

Note: Generally, total cost of 2, 3, 4 above > Total cost of 1 above

Murphy’s First Principle of Supplies: The availability of a given material is indirectly proportional to how much you need it.
Murphy’s Principle of Materials Handling: The true weight of a material will be greater if moved by hand and is directly proportional to the age of the person carrying it.
Murphy’s Third Law of DIY: To estimate the amount of time needed to complete a project, approximate the amount of time you think you need, multiply it by two and then use the next highest unit. Example: A one hour task will take at least two days to complete.

If you are unfamiliar with any of these Laws and want to know more, please feel free to contact me for further explanation.

The Pee Pad Project to be continued…

October 9, 2022

The Pee Pad Project (continued)

As it turned out, the procurement of the tools and materials was the hardest part of the EASY BUILD DIY BALCONY DOG POTTY AREA WITH REAL GRASS. Gratefully, once all the various pieces were gathered, the actual assembly of it went fairly quickly.

NOW FOR THE BIG REVEAL OF THE FINAL CREATION…Ta-Da!!

There is a line from the Field of Dreams movie that goes something like “If you build it, they will come.” In a rough analogy, I hoped this adage would hold true with Gracie and her brand-new EASY BUILD DIY BALCONY DOG POTTY AREA WITH REAL GRASS. Up until completion I felt optimistic that Gracie WOULD USE her new potty area once it was ready. Of course, she would! It has REAL GRASS! And it’s ALL HERS and it WILL SMELL LIKE HER! And did I mention? It has REAL GRASS!

At the same time, I harbored a sense of unease. What if, after all this work, Gracie wouldn’t….

Well, I couldn’t think about that.

It was time for the real acid test. BRING ON THE DOG!! And lo and behold, though obviously not exactly a flattering pose, this action, displayed in the photo below, MADE MY DAY!

YIPPEE!! We celebrated with lots of praise and lots of treats (for Gracie and me) and shared photos of the joyous occasion with family members.

I was relieved Gracie relieved! We were on the road to balcony potty paradise for my pooch! Could it really be a SUCCESS? It seemed so. Well, at least, at first…

The Pee Pad Project to be continued…

October 11, 2022

The Pee Pad Project (continued)

“You Can Lead a Horse to Water, But You Can’t Make It Drink”

This motto, regrettably, seems more apt as time moved on and my hopes were deflated for Gracie using her balcony potty pad. There had been an early promise when she relieved herself on it a few times during the first days. But then, rather than using it for its intended purpose, Gracie began to dig up the sod instead. I discouraged her from that. After that, as if in defiance, each time I took her out, she refused to use the potty pad at all. She’d just walk AROUND it. Now she actually seems AFRAID of it! Then when she comes back inside, she’ll stroll to the front door and beg to go into the neighborhood to do her “business.”

SIGH…

I’ve racked my brain and scoured Google for ideas on how to encourage Gracie to use her balcony potty pad. I’ve tried giving her lots of praise, doling out countless treats, “waiting until the last minute,” and even – as suggested by a few insightful friends – rubbing Gracie’s own waste on the potty pad sod so she can smell her scent.

Nothing seems to work.

So, this week I posed the problem to Melissa, our lovely, knowledgeable, and no-nonsense doggie class instructor. After some thought, Melissa proposed that perhaps I am far too anxious for Gracie to use her potty pad and Gracie can sense my anxiety. Melissa suggested I try to be much more relaxed about the whole thing. She advised I let Gracie out, just let her enjoy the balcony (and not necessarily relieve herself) and allow her to come back inside when she’s ready. And I should try to be calm. And give it time. And be calm.

I’m putting my faith in Melissa. (In addition to her doggie training and marketing skills, Melissa seems to have a knack for psychotherapy, too!)

So that’s where we stand. Maybe I’ll figure out how to apply Feng Shui to the EASY BUILD DIY BALCONY DOG POTTY AREA WITH REAL GRASS. In the meantime, Gracie is prancing around the neighborhood relieving herself as I tag along behind her repeating the meditative mantra “Serenity now.” *

Another SIGH…

This ends The Pee Pad Project series, but I hope in the not-too-distant future, I’ll have an encouraging epilog.

* The “Serenity now” mantra is a reference from Seinfeld season 9, episode 3.

October 15, 2022

Happy 5/6 to Gracie!!

Gracie is 10 months old today (that is, she is 5/6ths of a year).

Here she is posing with a recent tile I painted of her….

October 16, 2022

Woo-hoo!! Gracie graduated today from Intermediate Doggie training! Once again, I’m so very proud of my little Golden Noodle! (Even though, as with the beginner class, the only requirements were for Gracie to show up.) Most of today’s session was spent getting each dog to sit long enough for pictures with a graduation hat on.

Here are a few more photos from today’s ceremony….

The family graduate…

Our multi-talented instructor, Melissa. (Who also dabbles in photography….)

Below – The full 11:30am October 2022 Pet Smart Intermediate Training graduating class. Doggies are: Geo on left, Gracie in center, and Diamond on the right. (In characteristic dog-person fashion, I never learned the other owner names.)

October 20, 2022

I love going to the library, and I couldn’t resist any longer from borrowing books there, despite Gracie’s propensity to chew them up after I brought them home. So, against my better judgment, I started to take books out again. However, this time I committed to putting any library books safely into a drawer when I wasn’t reading them. This strategy worked well EXCEPT, of course, if I forgot and inadvertently left one out – which, naturally, happened recently. Indeed, Gracie shortly discovered the book sitting on the coffee table and grabbed it. By the time I found her, she had taken a big chunk out of the corner of the front cover. In an attempt to salvage it, I tried to glue the fragment back on, but the cover still looked battered. I sheepishly took the book back to the library, where I had to pay for the hardcover in full. (I’m sure they took one look at my library record, saw my recent trail of destruction, and decided to cut me no breaks.) Anyway, I now own the manuscript with the mangled corner on the cover. The name of that book? Ironically, “The Missing Piece.”

Mom asked me recently how many books Gracie has damaged. I replied, “I think maybe four.” This exchange compelled me to double-check the accuracy of my claim. As it turns out, in fact, in the past 8 months Gracie has pillaged, ransacked, and/or otherwise annihilated.

completely, EIGHT books (mostly hardback) either personally owned by me or that were originally from the local library. Following are the titles Gracie selected for mutilation:

The Missing Piece
Project Hail Mary
London’s Number One Dog-Walking Agency
Consumer Reports Buying Guide
The Hidden Life of Trees (shown in picture below)
Humanist Manifesto
Mad Enchantment
The Ultimate Guide to Dog Training

October 27, 2022

Gracie had a great time today playing in the Teegarden dog park with a beautiful dark-colored Australian Shephard with a long, fluffy tail, The owner, Peter. introduced himself and then told me you usually see Australian Shepherds without a tail. Interestingly, the dogs of this breed may be born without a tail or, typically, if it has a tail, it will be cut off (“docked”). But Peter’s dog did have a tail when it was born, and Peter wanted it to stay on, so he had to pay an extra $200 to keep it on! Go figure! Evidently, if you want to show your Australian Shephard (which Peter didn’t), AKC standards dictate these dogs must have docked tails.

As our dogs frolicked in the fields today, I asked Peter the name of his Australian Shephard. He replied, “River” – named after the Saint Lawrence River. He said he and bis wife love it there and they rent a cabin in Alexandria Bay where they stay each September. I then told him my parents used to vacation in that area every summer, just down the road in Clayton, NY.

Australian Shepherds are intelligent dogs. They are natural herders and are known as good hunting dogs because of their high prey drive instincts. Peter said River recently caught a live squirrel that had fallen down his chimney and then carried the squirrel onto the bed where he and his wife were sleeping! River has also learned to tip up the toilet seat with his snout to get a drink of water. What a clever dog!

A photo of an Australian Shephard that looks like River: