Pushing It!

Life has been very exciting around here lately. Exploratory trips into the attic storage space. A live Christmas tree brought into the house and put up. Strange boxes full of long stringy things with shiny bits on them, perfect for cats and kittens to rummage through. Batch after batch of chocolate candy and cookies and buttery bread issuing from the kitchen. A big pot of chicken stock simmering, simmering on the stove. Odd green and red things hung all over various surfaces. Felines racing up and down the stairs in exuberance and glee.

It can be a lot for a self-respecting dog to deal with. It's prone to get his canine mind a mite addled. Make him forget his sense of timing and appropriate behavior.

So I couldn't really blame Llewellyn when he lifted his leg in the upstairs hall yesterday, only four or five hours after he'd been out to do his business. The excitement just got to him, that's all.

But this evening, he went too far.

This evening, Christmas Eve, things were quiet. I was standing at the stove, nursing a sauce through a very delicate stage, when I noticed Llewellyn sit down in the corner by the back door. He wasn't quite settled there waiting or signalling: it was more like he was going through the motions to see if he could get my attention.

He did, but that didn't oblige me to act on it. I'd taken him out to the alley barely three hours before. He could jolly well wait. The sauce I was making could not.

Whereupon he casually rose, walked over to the refrigerator, and lifted his leg and did a wee right there on the kitchen floor!

Guess again, doggo! It's into the crate with you, and if you wet it, that's your problem!

I finished the sauce and cleaned up the mess, in that order. Fortunately, the cats had no interest in either.

And then I took Llewellyn out the back.

Was I being mean? I don't think so. He can hold his water when he wants to.

Unless it should turn out there's something wrong with him? And he needs to go to the vet?

Guilt!!!!

Or does a certain mutt simply need a gentle but firm refresher course in just who is alpha in this household?

I'll see what develops after the holidays.