Toilet Swimming
Lyra has taken up a new sport. It’s called “Swimming In the Toilet”.
It works like this. (Keep in mind there is some conjecture here, since I’ve never actually witnessed this).
Lyra takes a bone and sits down for a chew. Then she waits until I’m distracted, at which time she takes the bone to the bathroom and drops it into the toilet. Next, she attempts to remove the bone from the toilet, digging violently in the bowl until she has removed all of the water from the bowl and covered the floor with it. She leaves the bone for me to remove at a later time.
Lyra is not the first dog in my house to take up a toilet sport. When Juno was young she also thought it was great fun to remove the water from the toilet; the key difference is that Juno screams when she does it, so I can come running and prevent the full catastrophe. Lyra is silent.
Lyra’s addition of the toy to the bowl is pure genius, since my kids are not likely to pay any attention and next thing we’ll have a plumber at the house to remove the bone and whatever else gets stuck with it. I can’t wait.
I could close the toilet seat. This action would prevent the toilet swimming and I would no longer be mopping the floor on a daily basis, however…. I also have human children. I have been pleased to see these children lift the toilet seat in recent months rather than peeing indiscriminately all over the place. Closing the toilet lid upon completion of bathroom activity is probably asking too much now that they have just learned to open it.
Lyra has another favored activity. She climbs on top of the bookcase to pull down my son’s stuffies. I’m not completely sure how she does this, but I know that I have been carefully putting the stuffies up, and then ten minutes later they are down again. A few days ago I got a glimpse of her methods when I saw her stretched between the back of a couch (which is she is not allowed on) and a middle shelf on the bookcase. It has crossed my mind that we may not be far from finding stuffies in the toilet. My human child will not be pleased.
If I catch Lyra toilet swimming, we will have a discussion. It will not be motivational.
17 comments
Several years ago I remember taking a toilet apart and finding that the clog was from my dogs bone. He also used to like his bone wet
Funny story! But it surprises me that you allow your dog into the bathroom. I never allow any of my dogs into the bathroom. It is good for dogs to have a boundary and can help against anxious dogs who like to be at your side 24/7 in the house. Also its a personal area and dogs shouldn’t be a part of the areas that you bath and toilet and clean. It would also solve all toilet water problems :)
Love it!! What a quandary human children bring into the mix….really you would be doing you future daughters in law a favor for teaching them to drop the lid…maybe a gold star they bring you for a quarter…good luck with your non motivational discussion….
PLEASE let me know what you do about this. I have more than one dog who engages in similar behavior in their water bowls/buckets (I use 2 gallon buckets since I have lots of dogs). I now have my first ever Belgian who engages in this behavior of digging water out of the bucket. I have had Tervuren for 25 years and this 14 week old has been climbing UP to get her front into the buckets since she was big enough to do so. I have pools, puddles, other activities for her but she just LOVES the water. I find that my Siberian huskies are the others most likely to play in the water…I am sure it feels a bit like running in deep, cool snow. But my Terv baby??? I suppose lots of close supervision and a non-motivational speech of my own is in our future.
All my young dogs have loved the drop-item-into-water game. I have a very large stainless steel water bowl on the back porch when I have a young dog who wants to do this. Then they can play this game with a ball or toy outside where there’s no mess to clean up. When played outside, they sometimes get themselves all worked up into a session of the zoomies. It’s really amusing. I get a real kick out of it.
As for the stuffed toys, I would say it would be safest and easiest to just put them completely away and out of site just for the time being – perhaps in a closet. It won’t be long until all this adolescent stuff is over and you can have all the toys out again without some big mishap or expensive vet bill.
After rescuing six adolescent dogs during my life, I’ve found that the easiest thing is simply to employ the “out of sight out of mind” training method for a little while. It’s all over before you know it and you’ll completely forget that you had to ever put anything away and out of sight from your young dog. Well, that is, until you get your next pup!