TIFU and got my dog a doggy doorbell that is hooked up to a surround sound system throughout the entire damn house.

I don’t know where we went wrong but honestly, we were pretty spoiled by our first pup, Rocket. Rocket took all of 3 weeks to potty train. He learned to scratch at the door on his own within a week and felt genuine sadness knowing he did something wrong when he didn’t have a chance to make it outside, watching our older dog at the time. Pretty sure he's secretly working on his dissertation somewhere as we speak.

Cut to Leela, our second pup. She is absolutely gorgeous, strong-willed and so so sweet. But we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I guess Leela’s weakness is her brain capacity or lack thereof. Now I feel horrible saying this because she really does try (I think)-- it's just that her brain is attunely focused on more important things like butterflies and dust flecks floating in the air. She's just more of a free spirit.

Anyway, she's over a year old and still having accidents inside. And I'm losing my goddamn mind because I work remote, and I cannot even count the number of times I've been on an important work call or meeting and I go to grab my charger or something and I'm stranded amidst an ocean of piss. I can't even hop to the bathroom and wash my fucking foot because I'm presenting and can't go on mute, so I just have to hop to the closest seating available and sit there with a piss-covered foot for 45 minutes without letting on.

We have been working on this with her for like 9 months. At first, she was just completely unashamed and when we reprimanded her, she could care less. She eventually grew out of her sociopathic phase and is now the biggest (and quirkiest) cuddle bug I've ever met. Still, no brain capacity reserved for potty training.

She's at least now grown to recognize that it's not good to have accidents inside and definitely not good when it's not an accident.

So then, we tried teaching her to scratch at the door, since it worked with our other two pups. The problem with Leela is that she is very singularly-focused. So if we use treats, she just stares at the treat and pays no attention to what she's doing. We started just showing her that every time she scratched, we'd open the door. To do this, we'd pick up her paw and scratch at the door with it, while she intensely stared into our eyes, tail wagging.

I wouldn't say it was completely unsuccessful because she learned but she learned the wrong goddamn thing. She then started just sitting in front of the door holding her paw up like somehow this silently triggers the door to open. Literally she'll be sitting there in the dark with her paw up staring at the door waiting for it to open. It's our fault because when we see this, we automatically reinforce it by opening the door because if we don't open it quickly, she decides: 'well I tried.' And proceeds to take a shit wherever she pleases.

And this is why my genius brain decided, let's get her a doggy doorbell. And not just any doggy door bell, but one with surround sound hooked up around the house with 3 receivers so she could ring at any door to get us to open it.

So we spent 8 hours the first day showing her and her brother how it worked. Rocket learned it in like 2 hours. The other 6 we spent trying not to rip our hair out. Funnily enough, she did not get bored once. She could not get enough of this "new game." She wouldn't let us stop! So eventually, she learned it [after a week more of us showing her how this would open the door for her].

The other night, I realized we've now enabled her to disrupt absolutely everything in this house so she can go outside and sniff every leaf that she finds suspicious. Spoiler alert: every leaf is a suspicious leaf.

I spent the entirety of this week so far escorting her in and out of the house. Although my cardio's looking better, especially in these trying times of quarantine, I'm fucking exhausted.

I know I did it to myself. But I can’t fucking help feeling like the victim here.

Now with the travel bans, all our teams are working remote as well so we have back-to-back meetings some days. And every. single. goddamn. fucking. meeting is interrupted with this godforsaken bell heard 'round the world -- or at least the town. My brain just rattles around in my skull at this point to be honest. I'm filled with anxiety if I don't tend to her immediately because I'm torn -- what if this is actually the time she has to go and I don't let her out? It’d be so cruel. And I'll have ruined everything we went through to get her here. We're so fucking close you know?

So now, I have to go on mute and pretend my mic isn't working every meeting so I can run her out and pull the same shit to run her back in. All so she can stalk a blade of grass for 5 minutes and pounce just to land on her face.

And now in my firm, across multiple teams we've worked with, I'm known as the girl with mic issues. If that's the worst of it, that's not so bad right? But it's not.

Leela is now realizing that she doesn't ever get to explore her surroundings at night. And why not? She has this magic doorbell that forces daddy (because I ain't doing this shit after I had to deal with it all day) to get up at odd hours of the night and escort her with a flashlight to get some good sniffs in before daddy loses his patience.

We live in what used to be a quiet coastal town so I wake up multiple times a night now to "DING DONG" followed by "fucking dog..." and happy paws bouncing up and down the stairs and my fiance cursing to himself outside while making idle threats (to himself really) to put the dog in time-out if she doesn't get her shit together.

Three days of this and he gave up. We decided we're just going to ignore the bell at night.

But Leela... Mama didn’t raise no quitter. She'll ring the bell repeatedly till we yell at her to stop and then she'll cry and cry holding her paw up in front of the door, while we continue to ignore her, as instructed by a YouTube dog behaviorist. And after maybe 15 - 30 minutes depending on how lucky she’s feeling, she'll come lay next to me but facing away from me, inching away every time I go to touch her. I of course have to pretend to not notice and try not to roll my eyes straight out of my head. At which point, she’ll proceed to groan and grumble to herself till one of us runs out of patience and threatens her with time-out.

I can't with the histrionics. I really can't. This must be what it's like to have human kids.

Worst part? SHE NOW SHITS AND PISSES INSIDE AT NIGHT-- EVERY FUCKING NIGHT WITHOUT FAIL-- AND I'M NOT ENTIRELY CONVINCED THAT IT'S NOT OUT OF SPITE. And with the quarantine, we can't take her to the dog park to run her tired so she is relentless with the bell since it's apparently now her one source of entertainment. Never mind the hundreds of dollars we spend on toys and treats and chews and fucking brain games. I even bought a dehydrator to make goddamn fucking homemade dog chews. But no. The fucking doorbell is her new thing.

I now live in my own personal hell. Between the sleep deprivation, the sound torture and all the fecal matter, I feel like a damn POW. The war’s over. She’s won. But there’s no end in sight for me. I can tell you that much.

This morning, I had a really important client call during which I had to run into the other room to grab my phone charger and wouldn't you know it? Stepped in a massive pile of dog shit which clung to my foot as I hopped back to my laptop leaving a trail of semi-wet turds in my wake. I, then, sat there for another half hour (with my foot covered in dog shit) explaining our framework for governance and regulatory compliance when I can't even lay down the law in my own fucking house.

TLDR: Got my dog a doorbell and now she won't stop ringing it or pooping in the house, and now I am a prisoner in my own home (and not just because of government-imposed self-isolation).

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