Like a dog who marks its territory.

Potty training has recently taken a setback, and we were doing so well. Mark has recently taken to wetting his pants. To his credit he is at least going poop in the potty. Someone, whether its me, Rick, Grandma or Grandpa will ask Mark to use the potty and he will refuse. Shortly thereafter he will wet his pants. Or if he is forced to go, he will still wet his pants shortly thereafter. Its clearly a power struggle issue, because he knows how to use the potty, knows how to tell us if he needs to use the potty, but he is just refusing. Needless to say he is back in pull-ups.

Now you may be wondering where does Mark like to take care of business when not using the bathroom. His room of choice, his bedroom.

As you can tell from prior posts Mark’s bedroom is quite a hub of boorish behavior. In the last month Mark has peed on the carpet in his room a total of six times, with the most recent being Saturday. I have relocated the carpet steam cleaner from the closet on the main floor to the bathroom adjacent to Mark’s room for easy and convenient access. (FYI, Hoover carpet steam cleaner one of the best investments I have every made. It’s pricey but if you have children prone to creating incidents on your carpet, soooo worth it!) I believe that Mark is trying to make a statement by defacing the carpet in his room. He wants it to be known to all it is his room and none shall posses this room unless taken by force. Then again with what he is doing to his room who would want it?

Then there is the dog, who is actually marking his territory. On Saturday Jake was acting peculiar and went in and out about 10 times in the course of 45 minutes. As soon as he came inside he would want out again. He would stay out for about 3 minutes and want back in. We all noticed his unusual behavior. Everyone once and a while Jake gets a hunkering for grass, as in he goes outside and eats grass, doesn’t every dog do that? Well you can imagine that does not sit well in his stomach. So shortly after getting his fill of grass he came inside and promptly regurgitated the grass. He too has rooms of choice. When Jake wants to engage in any type of dog conduct inside that should take place outside his first choice is the rug in the office. The good news is the rug in the office is primarily forest green and has a very busy pattern so the evidence of Jake’s activities can be well hidden, which is also the bad news because on more than one occasion members of the family have stepped in Jake’s deposits because they blend in so well. Jake’s second choice is the living room/organ room. There is no rug in that room so his conduct is very evident.

On Saturday Jake decided that he would leave a gift of grass regurgitation in both rooms.

(Be glad these pictures are a bit blurry!)

Its been a rough weekend for my carpet.