THE DECISION...'08

Thanks for the advice blogging friends! For the record...we adopted Matilda from a "puppy mill" environment. She was almost 2 years old and came with BAD HABITS! Poor thing had been debarked, bred twice and neutered. She is the sweetest thing in the world, but shortly after her arrival on Xmas morning, she began pooping in her crate and basically rolling in it. After that we put her in the laundry room and she had a poop party in there as well! We have tried everything. I asked the veterinarian and she said once they start pooping in their crates, or "dancing" in their poop there isn't much you can do to break them of it. And believe me, we have TRIED! So yes, out of total DESPERATION we moved her bed into the garage this summer. We only let her in if we are right there with her, otherwise she is outside or in the garage. So far, she hasn't played in her poop much since. But if we leave her unattended we often have a mess to come home to...case in point: RUINED CARPET in our guest bedroom! OH, THE JOYS! In retrospect we should have bought a puppy and trained it ourselves! We have decided to let Matilda live with the neighbor. She will be much happier there and Parker can visit her or borrow her ANY TIME he wants to. Ben is going to break it to him, since I never wanted a dog in the first place. I think he'll be sad at first but quickly get over it based on prior conversations. Last week he told Ben we could get rid of her if we bought him a fish tank that wraps around his room like "Rainforest Cafe". When Ben said "no", P-Ditty said, "Tough choices dad! Tough choices!" Little stinker. At least he'll get to see her often. He rarely plays with her and she ends up staying at the neighbor's often anyway. So don't judge me! :)