Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Dynamic Duo

One day, one of the boys had the bright idea to lift their leg and pee on the screen enclosure that goes around our pool.  Since the pugs know that they can not walk through the screen enclosure, they treat it like a wall and they are unable to comprehend that the little holes in the screen let their pee pee go through to the other side of the deck.

When they first discovered that the could pee from the outside of the screen and it would land on the deck they were quite pleased with themselves.  It was like they just found out they possessed super powers.  They could now pee through walls!

While Batman & Robin think of this as a glorious thing, I’m not too happy with it.  I have tried to make them stop, but they have me on a technicality.  They are in the yard outside when they go potty!  The only requirement I have ever had was that you go potty outside in the yard, I never specified exactly where in the yard.

To deter them from going potty through the screen, I built a little garden next to the screen and filled it with plants.  It worked for awhile as the plants became their new favorite thing thing to pee on.  But then, the boys changed things up and started peeing on a different part of the screen.  I didn’t really want to plant another garden so I got a little bamboo fence that you stick into the ground.  It isn’t very long, but it covered the main spot where they like to go potty.

It worked for awhile, but then the other day I spotted Benny doing this.

Come on Ben!  Must you?  The boy doesn’t have much smarts in other areas of life, but when it comes to peeing on things he is a genius!

The way I see it, I have two choices.  Take the easy way out and get more bamboo fence or for once and for all train them not to pee on the screen enclosure.  While it does irk me to have to squirt off the deck so often, I keep thinking back to when Benjamin & Henry were puppies and the never ending potty accidents I had to clean up in the house.  Those memories make this screen issue seem trivial.  This is about as close as they come to having potty accidents and that makes me one lucky woman.

I have 5 animals and, knock wood, they all go potty in the proper places.  The only issue is my two superheroes that sometimes abuse their super powers and pee through walls.