Do your business, Josie!

With Pat off to work at 7:45, it fell to me to be the main care-giver on this, Josie's first weekday with us. In most ways, that was a great privilege. Alone-time with Josie: on-the-floor play, romping-in-the-garden play, and some time just each of us doing our own thing, but still in each other's company, in the kitchen. She's started to just lie down once in a while and rest her snout on her oversized paws -- a sign of relaxed adaptation. She's such a fine pup, so quick to adapt ...to most things anyway. Now, the book says that she's supposed to need to relieve herself 15 minutes after any meal or after having water. So I'm out there faithfully, repeating the encouraging words "do your business, Josie!" just like the book says, for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. No business in her designated soiling area. Later on, however, she did manage soundlessly to dispense a puddle of urine on the kitchen floor. By the end of the day I was a mite tired of the dynamic. As I expressed my frustration, Patricia sought to correct my various theories about the day. I told her to please just give me a hug and be done with it. Some more time romping with Josie and Elizabeth, and then Josie and Michael, and all of us in the kitchen before bed, and all was well again.