Bucket is Confused.

We have the most dysfunctional dogs on the face of the planet. It's official.

You'll remember how proud I was that our boy Bucket had finally learned to lift his leg to pee? What an amazing moment in puppy parenthood that was! I must have made too big a deal out of it, or perhaps the boy's brain is addled, because tonight while on our walk, I witnessed the following: Bucket approached the mail box like any other--sniffing earnestly, determining whether he needed to leave a reminder to the other dogs that this is his neighbourhood, too. He then proceeded to lift his leg....and pooped! I wish I was kidding. I would love to have the imagination required to make something like this up. But no, he really did lift his leg as though going for the Mark, and pooped. He even looked confused when it happened, sort of like "Uh-oh...that's not what I meant to do..." I nearly fell over laughing, and I'm not sure that helped much, because then he tried to stop and walk away, dingleberries and all.

On an up-note though, after last night's dog-walk-near-catastrophe*, I decided to walk them separately tonight. It went swimmingly. Bucket didn't have to wear his Halti, which he was ever so grateful for and repaid by walking nicely by my side nearly the entire time. We even stopped to say hello to some kids, and despite some bit of skittishness (something about little kids kind of freaks him out), he eventually even did "sit" and "wave" at their commands (I gave them treat-bribes to give to him). Delilah had to wear her Halti, but without him there, she walked really nicely and even looked up at me from time to time. Not adoringly like Bucket, but I'll take any attention I can get from her at this point. So we had two shorter walks instead of one long one. Let me rephrase that: I had two shorter walks instead of one long one. The kids each got to walk for about 20 minutes. Not really enough, I know, but it's a start. I would love to say that this will become the norm again, but I would probably prove to be a liar. It's just more time-efficient to take them both at the same time...although it was much more pleasant to be with them separately (except for the whining and crying when they crated alone...you'd think the sky had fallen!). Anyway.

It's already 9:37pm. Russell's playing WoW, so I'm going to read some more of my book and hit the hay. The dogs have (touch wood) actually been pretty good about not being all wakeful and annoying in the mornings, so perhaps I'll get some good sleep...

*My biggest pet peeve in the world by far at this point in time is people allowing their dogs to run loose in their yard--or the neighbourhood. The whole "oh, ____ is a great dog and always minds me and wouldn't hurt anyone" bullshit really doesn't fly with me. Last night we had issues with both a Rottweiller and a Jack Russell Terrier...want to guess which one was worse?