There is nothing like the smell of dog shit in the morning especially if it is squishing between your toes. My wife’s dog Chloe, a Maltese, is ‘trained’. She scratches at my shin and barks, Chloe is asking to go out. Is she scratching because she has business to do, or is she scratching because her business is already done? Will I find evidence of her business at one her regular drop-off locations? Is she going to do her business, or is she going outside, in the cold, to make amends for business she’s already done?
I open the door, the question, will she stay or will she go now? There is no certainty, the odds no better than fifty-fifty that she’ll do the right thing. She goes. I watch her through the French doors looking for a place to make the deposit. She zeroes in on a prospective site, she circles, the circle getting tighter and tighter, but no, this is not the spot and she moves on. Another location, and the ritual begins again. Is she serious, or is she waiting for me to turn away and then to pretend that it is ‘mission accomplished’.
Her search reminds me that I have business of my own to do. I’m no sooner seated than I realize that the deposit she is pretending to make outside is in the room with me. Yuk. She’s a bad dog, and I tell her so but she can’t hear me, she’s still outside play acting. I finish my business, clean up her business, and return to let her in. She wants praise for her recent ‘business trip’. The fact that she did no business doesn’t seem to concern her. I ignore her calls for praise, she gets none, and no frequent pooper miles for this trip.