I put my two dogs out every night right before I go to bed. On some nights, something will catch Blue’s attention as she goes out the door and she will shift gears from reluctantly waking up from her evening nap to full alert and barking as she races across the yard. Then she comes back to the porch, sits down and looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to open the door to let her back in. Since she has not performed the task to which she was assigned, I stand there using every word and gesture I know to indicate she should go pee. This pretty much involves me standing at the door saying, “Pee, Blue. Go pee.” Blue sits staring alertly and with ferocious intensity at me, trying to figure out what it is I want her to do. You can almost see her little mind focusing as hard as possible on me in the hope of discerning my desires. And I can only wonder just how many possibilities there are in that little brain of hers. I mean, it’s 11 PM, it’s cold, it’s dark and it’s bedtime. How many things can she possibly think I want her to do in order to earn the privilege of coming in?
Sometimes the lightbulb goes on and she reluctantly waddles back to the middle of the yard and squats. Sometimes I give up and figure if she doesn’t have to go, she doesn’t have to go. Those are the nights when I find myself up at 3 AM shivering in the doorway because it finally dawned on her what I was saying when I kept screaming, “Go pee.”