Rita, The Escape Artist

Rita! It’s a good thing we love her! I’m claiming victory in the house training department. It’s been well over two months since she’s had an accident in the house. She even goes to the door now and makes noises when she has to go out. Good Rita!

Saturday we were leaving home at 7 a.m. and hadn’t planned to be back til 7 or 8 p.m. That’s a long time for any dog to hold it . . especially Rita, who I may never trust after all her accidents, and Speck, who’s taking meds, one of which is a steroid and he drinks more water than normal. Thank goodness, there’s no carpet in the main part of the house. We put pads down —  3 in the living/dining room, 2 in the kitchen and . . we closed the baby gate with Rita in the kitchen. There’s tile floor in there and hardwood in the family room/dining room.

We got home earlier than expected . . about 5:15 p.m. I opened the door and . . there was Rita! She wasn’t supposed to have the run of the house! She had knocked the gate completely over and let herself out. That gate was screwed so tightly (expanded) that Vince had to unscrew it to get it back in place. How on earth did she do that?

The worst part . . I had just bought a 5 pound bag of potatoes but hadn’t put them in the potato bin because I wanted to use up the older potatoes first. She shredded the plastic and shredded about 2/3 of the potatoes in the bag. It truly looked like grated potatoes . . everywhere!

Sunday we went back to the Mother Earth News Fair and Vince said “I guess there’s no reason to lock her in the kitchen, huh?” I guess not! If Speck had been standing on the other side of the gate when it fell, it could have hurt him and now that she’s managed to know it over once, she’ll probably keep hitting it and hitting it til she knocks it over again.

The best part . . neither of them had any accidents and neither of them used the pads. Speck would probably burst before he would use the bathroom in the house, even with the pads. Rita . . I’m so happy she’s doing so well.