It just so happens...

Priest has played Houdini a couple of times and magically opened the door to his Xpen while we've been out. Nothing destroyed, no accidents. Yay for Priest! So I thought yesterday might be a good day to try to leave his Xpen open while we're at work. The look he gave me as I walked out the door said, "Um, Mum, aren't you forgetting something? Or are you going to seriously leave the door open?" But I had faith that everything would be fine.

Except I didn't realize the extent to which the bone we gave him to chew on on Sunday had done a number on his stomach...

I could smell something wrong the minute I walked in. A brief survey of the house revealed eight accidents: four diarrhea, three vomit (complete with partially digested dog food), and one urine. I think the urine was more that he knew it was bad, and probably couldn't get much worse, and hey, he had to go... He left no floor untouched. Basement, main floor, and upper floor were all affected. And it had obviously happened early in the morning, because it was pretty much all dried into the carpet and onto the hardwood...

Poor Priest.

Anyway, we got it cleaned up. I even got probably most of the diarrhea out from underneath the baseboard in the living room (hardwood there; it had pooled...). And we have the carpet cleaner for another 36 hours or so, so if we need to go over any of the spots again (or heaven forbid he has another accident), then we can. We've been feeding him plain rice for the last two meals, and I'll make him some with the beef broth we have frozen as well, so hopefully that settles his stomach a little.

So today I'm home with my sick puppy. I have over 9 days banked, and the roads are unbelievably horrible, and I'm working all weekend for Provincials, so I really don't care. Except I do. But I shouldn't. Argh.

Mike told me it is my choice about when to leave him loose. I still think he can handle it, but I really picked the wrong day to start. So it'll be back to penning him while we're at work for at least another two weeks. If he hadn't peed, it'd probably only be until his stomach settles down, but since he did...

Ah, the joys of dog parentship... But I wouldn't trade it.