Liquids and Solids

Yes, I stole the title for this post from a book someone else wrote ages ago, about their dog and (you can guess) the excitement involved in house training. Get it? It's all about liquids and solids. Bob and have had more discussions in the past week about canine bodily functions than most people have in an entire life. I have taken to keeping a note pad, complete with time and location of puppy byproducts. It certainly makes for fascinating reading!
Robin- despite having arrived at our house 100% NOT house trained- is doing remarkably well. She sleeps most of the night and it is me that rouses her at 2:30 or 3:00 to make a little trip outside to eliminate so no surprises happen on the bedroom floor. She is smart and doing a good job.
But she has been most unhappy when we attempt to leave her alone, an unacceptable state to a young dog! Let's face it: her entire thirteen week existence has been in the presence of her mother and litter mates and the other adult dogs at the breeder's house. So she has had zero experience on her own and has protested in all kinds of inventive ways. She sings, she howls, she leaves the above mentioned liquids and solids, obviously signalling her displeasure.
And she has proven to be quite the escape artist! Bob and I barricaded her in the kitchen (with plenty of toys ad blankets and reading material appropriate to her age and interests) but she pushed through a three foot high plywood partition blocked by kitchen chairs with ease. We then made a four foot high barrier on the stairway, with a board wedging the barrier tight. Somehow our little Robin- in an imitation of Spider Man- scaled or flew over this obstruction, and Bob found her upstairs. He sent an incredulous email to me at work. I dreaded coming home, and we both worried she'd hurt herself trying to escape the stockade that our house now resembled.

(The pictures, by the way, are of the very end of Robin's very funny tail. It looks like an etch-a-sketch drawing of a dog's tail, except at the end where there is this eccentric little twizzle. Totally endearing!) In any event, today we debated crate training (I've always been opposed) and Thunder Shirts (supposed to wrap the dog in a snug embrace and relieve anxiety) but decided to live dangerously and just leave her with the run of the kitchen and the upstairs hallway. We went out to run errands, hoping that she'd be happier with more room to situate herself where she felt secure and comfortable.
We came home and she was okay: at the top of the stairway squeaking and looking a bit perturbed, but happier than she had been. I went out again this afternoon, and Bob was in his studio, leaving Robin on her own once more. And do you know, she was once again better off with more run of the house... and no surprises in the form of the famous liquids and solids to clean up! Maybe we've found the charm.