Oops....

Well. I take full responsibility for this one. Savannah had too many treats yesterday, followed by an entire rawhide chew-bone, topped off by the Fancy Feast that Sweet Pea and Mickey didn't eat, and then ending with her own puppy kibble.

And then, the cherry on that sundae was this morning's rain... the first we've had since we brought Savannah home. All of the above, plus the rain, was not a good combination for this puppy's digestive system.

I was surprised this morning that Savannah did not wake me up with her usual four o'clock in the morning potty-bark. When I came downstairs at 6:00, I took her right out in the grass by the driveway and she did what I thought was all she had to do. Then at first light this morning, which was about 7:15, it was raining outside and up went the umbrella (Savannah paid no attention to it at all) and once again, I thought she did all she had to do out there during our walk and I was surprised that she did as much as she did. (Only dog lovers can tolerate these details... to all others, I apologize.) The after-sunrise walk was shorter than our usual walk because of the rain, but I thought it would be enough since she had already did enough out there in the grass. Or so I thought.

Back upstairs I went, to get ready for this morning's errands, which included a stop at my space at the antique shop, a hair trim, the thrift store, the dry-cleaners, and then the HEB supermarket to get the things I couldn't find at Walmart yesterday. (Can't one store ever have everything on a shopping list?

When I got home, it was about 12:30 and as soon as I opened that back door, I knew something was not quite right. First of all, the air was pungent, to put it mildly, and Savannah was in her bed in the breakfast room, not wanting to come out of there, not even wagging her tail, and just barely looking at me. Definitely not right on all counts.

A few steps around the kitchen island and there it was... a nice soft mushy pile of puppy poop all the way in the corner, as far away from her dog-bed as she could get, and blessedly not on the area rugs, just on the ceramic tiles. Well, it was a messy clean-up, but an easy one, and I must have told Savannah ten times that she was a good girl and it was not her fault. Even with that, she wouldn't come out of her dog bed until it had been thoroughly cleaned and the kitchen aired with the breeze blowing in through the back-door screen. When Savannah finally did come out of her bed, her head was down, her tail was down, and she nudged my knee with her big Pyrenees nose and sat down by my leg. (Go on... tell me that dogs don't have emotions and feelings...)

This was Savannah's first mishap in the house, and after a quick review of everything she ate between yesterday afternoon and last night, it shouldn't surprise me.  Had I been home, Savannah would have let me know that she had to go outside.... and had it not been raining the morning, I would have walked her more thoroughly in the first place. (Note to self: Do not skimp on Savannah's walks!)

With this morning's rain, which was indeed more of a downpour than a drizzle, I realized that I didn't have an old towel to use for drying off Savannah before she came inside from the back porch after just such a rain. That prompted me to go to the thrift store this morning, and now Savannah has a very pretty towel that's nearly the size of a beach towel, for less than half the price of a brand new washcloth. Before I let her into the house after that rain this morning, I was trying to dry her fur with an old kitchen towel from the stack of cleaning rags. Using a kitchen towel on a dog her size is like trying to mop up a puppy mess with a tissue. (But let's not go there again.)