I just wasn’t prepared for dogs in Chicago winter. I really thought I was. And I was so wrong. And now I’m at my wits’ end, unsure if I’m doing the right thing for our furry friends.

I’m exhausted. Our alarm usually goes off at 7:00 am in the mornings. A little before 5:00 am, I woke up to the sounds of Kiki (quietly) in some distress, and no Bill in bed. At 4:55 am, Bill was back in bed, and I was telling him I was going to go take the dogs out, since clearly they needed it. And at 5:53 am, I was finally back inside, warming up.

In between, everything went sideways.

Starting at the beginning, I started prepping for going outside, with every intent to not let the dogs out of crates until I was totally ready to get booties on them and get out. I was trying to be quiet and do a bunch in the dark, in the hopes of letting Bill fall back asleep.

Kiki gave approximately 0 fucks about letting Bill sleep, so once she was agitated enough about still being in the crate she barked. Loudly. As Bill is asking her what the fuck, I’m giving up on keeping them crated until I’m ready to go, and still trying to get out so he can get back to sleep.

No such luck. Kiki got out of the crate, raced to the kitchen, and pooped all over the floor while I was trying to, in the dark, get their booties together. I corrected her (let’s be honest, with a “goddamnit” in there), and Bill gave up trying to sleep and came to investigate.

That helped a little, but as I was getting warm gear on, she decided to repeat the performance. At which point, knowing she’s got sturdier paws than Happy, I decided “Fuck it” and threw on my coat and hauled her (and her poop, which Bill had managed to clean up) outside.

This started roughly 45 minutes of, with one dog or the other, walking and trying to explain to them that they don’t actually have the option of pooping inside the house. Kiki, it was easier in some ways, she actually enjoys being outside in this and was raring to walk. But she’d done most of her pooping already, so waiting on that last little bit was frustrating. And frustrating in part because I was worried what Happy was doing while still inside.

The good news is that what he was doing was not his business all over my floor. The bad news is that he was waiting right by the door fretting because he’d been separated from Kiki.

The further bad news is that he’s got much more delicate paws and so HAD to get booted up. And he picked today to decide

It took both Bill and I to get him into a position to get booted up. And before you ask, yes, there were LOTS of treats involved. I am not above bribing my dogs.

Unfortunately, he was fully happy to do a bit of what he needed to do. But he pretty much concluded that he’d rather go back inside than finish up outside. And I was not having it. And so we spent so. much. time. with me pacing back and forth with him or carrying him to a new area or shuffling after him to try to get him to move forward.

He finally did his thing, on one of the passes back toward the house. And we came home. At which point he didn’t want to let me take the boots off, even though they were soaked through and he hates them.

And then after that, he didn’t really want to get near me for a bit. We rectified that right around 5:53 am, but I’m certain he still doesn’t really trust me. And I can’t really blame him. He doesn’t understand that the boots protect his feet and keep him from hurting. He just knows they annoy him, are heavy (I think) and weird feeling.

Hell, he doesn’t even understand why he’s required to poop outside. He’s pretty sure it’d be better for all involved if he could just poop wherever he wants. But he, at least, understands a bit better than Kiki. And will hold it as best he can while trying, in his own way, to let me know he needs to go OUT. A fact for which I am grateful, especially as Kiki has no signal to go out, she just poops on the kitchen floor.

This is why I didn’t get a puppy. I seem to be working on housebreaking from the third floor…

At least she’s cute as the dickens.