#073 In which our hero loses it, big-time.

I am a broken man.

I've tried so hard to remain strong, adopting several sensical plans of action to help me deal with this constant, unrelenting drain on my mental resources. But I have lost the fight.

The dog has defeated me.

He has labored hard to overcome the combined strengths of The Scientist's smarts and my incoherent screaming, and has thus far thwarted our every plan. Fortunately, Skat Watch 2005 continued uninterrupted... but if it had been Piss Patrol it would have folded day one. The dog pisses on the floor constantly, and I, for one, am at a loss of what to do about it.

I'll remind you that we have long ago given up and actually not having him pee in the house, and at this point just want him to piss in the foyer, which is tiled. See how desperate it's become? The best I can now hope for is daily piss-mopping.

Of course, the dog does not wish to be contained in the foyer. Never mind that given the choice the asshole would simply lie down three feet from where we want him to. And yes, I put his dog bed (which is atop an extra pad to make it extra soft and comfy) right there in the foyer for him, along with a nice rawhide bone to chew. Naturally, he'll have none of it.

Here are some recent attempts to corral him and their results:

Put up wooden baby gates to block both hallways.
Result: he destroyed one of the gates, allowing him free reign of the house.

Replaced wooden baby gates with steel baby gates.
Result: managed to push one open, giving him access to the rest of the house.

Altered the way the baby gates hang so that they could no longer be pushed open.
Result: First, as part of this plan The Scientist thought it would be a good idea to leave the top baby gate (top of the stairs, that is... this one is made of wood) open, so he could get to the upper hallway. We closed all the bedroom doors, so there was just a carpeted hallway. I'm still not sure why The Scientist wanted to do this, being that the goal was to keep him for destroying our carpets. I think the theory was that if he couldn't chew through the metal gates, that he would set his sights on the wooden one and just fuck it up.

The ultimate result was that he pissed in the upper hallway, pushed open our bedroom door, tore up three used diapers, ate two pairs of The Scientist's panties and pissed twice more in our bedroom for good measure.

This was just yesterday. As you can probably imagine (if you've read anything I've written before) I completely lost my shit. I screamed at him and chased him around the house. I cornered him in the laundry room and proceeded to scream, "I hate you! I hate you!" like a disenfranchised 16-year-old. This had the result of him pissing all over that floor, too. I finally ordered him back to his bed, where he sat whimpering.

Now, you know how people always ask if crazy people know if they're crazy, or if those going insane can see where they're going? I'm here to tell you that I'm going mad, and I'm painfully aware of it.

Here's the thing: I was standing there glowering at the dog. He had just pissed up the whole house. I had just gotten home from work, and I actually had to pee myself.

Do you see where I'm going?

I pissed on the dog. Whipped it out and peed right on his goddamn stupid dog head. He seemed much less concerned about this action than, say, I would have been if someone pissed on my head. He seemed more like, "What the hell? I'm getting wet."

Well, this (obviously insane) action only led to more work for me... not only did I have to clean up bits of diaper and underwear, but now I had to throw the dog's bed in the wash and give him a quick bath.

So we have now put the next plan into action. He is again in the foyer, but The Scientist bought some spray stuff that's supposed to repel dogs. Personally, I can't imagine it's going to work, considering that breaking off pieces of his own teeth as he tried to chew through a wire kennel wasn't deterrent enough for him; I don't know what a little stinky spray is going to do.

If (when) this fails, The Scientist says that we can get some sort of invisible fencing for the inside of the house. One that, according to her, comes with a shock collar whose settings go up to "shock the shit out of him."

Which, I'm sure, will make him piss all the more.