Fool Me Twice...

I was doing laundry this morning and as I walked down to the basement, I passed Buddy coming up the stairs. I knew something had to be up because he never goes downstairs (not since he and Linda had their dog bed there. Now his dog bed is my bed or my couch) and saw the tell-tale signs of dog poop, mostly gone. Eaten. My only conclusion was that Buddy had to poop so badly he couldn't hold it (even though he had been outside twice this morning), went downstairs, took a crap, and then to prevent being caught and punished, ate it to hide the evidence. When Art makes Buddy his dinner, he always warms up the leftovers because otherwise "Buddy doesn't like it". Buddy eats his own sh*t, so now I'm sure he won't mind having cold leftovers. I opened the dog door and told Art that under no circumstances was he to close it; I would rather feel a draft than to have my house smell like old dog pee/poop.

But it gets better!! Later that day I went downstairs to put some jars in one of the back rooms and found, in the corner, a HUGE pile of dog sh*t. I could hardly get mad because it was so impressively large, like he'd been eating chili twice a day for a week. I'm not sure what to do; Besides the last couple of days, Buddy has never had an accident in the house. I think he's just so used to being able to go outside as needed, that he doesn't quite get the idea that when we let him out in the morning, that's the time to do his thing. So the dog door is open and will remain open from now on, because I don't enjoy cleaning up dog poop and Art gags when he has to. The nice thing about a concrete basement is that it makes for easy clean-up; no worries about stains on the carpet or ruining the hardwood floors. I will say that it's nicer with just one dog, because you always know who the culprit is. When we had two, I was never quite sure and, therefore, couldn't punish them too harshly.